


The Incredible Avengers

by Wordsplat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Established Relationship, Even adopted ones, F/M, M/M, Secret Identity, Starks can't stay out of trouble ever, Superfamily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-24 06:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordsplat/pseuds/Wordsplat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifteen years after the Superhero Relocation Program, the former Avengers have disbanded to live ordinary, civilian lives. It’s their kids who can’t seem to stay out of trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Eighteen Years Ago**

Steve fiddled with the microphone attached to his suit, adjusting it so it stopped making the crackly, disconnected static noises. His bulk was probably blocking the receiver, he should switch it to the other side of his shirt—

"He can break through walls, but hand the guy a mike and he's clueless." One of the cameramen setting up for his interview snickered, and Steve did his best not to look as displeased as he was. Five years since he'd been defrosted, and the public still treated him like an old codger waving his cane and ranting about "them good ol' days".

"Rolling in five, four…" The camera guy made the motion for three, two, one, then they were on.

"So, Captain America." The host smiled at him politely, though she was offscreen. "Do you have a secret identity?"

"Of course." Steve nodded. What kind of question was that? Did she think he went grocery shopping in this? "I don't know any heroes that don't have a secret identity. Who wants the pressure of being 'super' all the time?"

"Do you think there's any truth to the rumor that Iron Man might be the first superhero to come out about his identity? Many say he's the one and only Tony Stark. If anyone could handle the pressure of being super all the time it would be him, don't you think?"

"I know Iron Man." Steve shook his head. "He and Tony Stark are very close, but the man runs a Fortune 500 company. He spends his limited free time at galas, charity events, fundraisers; when would he have time to save the world?"

"Fair point. What can you tell us about the Avengers Initiative?"

"That was scrapped years ago." Steve frowned. The Avengers were definitely not on the SHIELD-approved the list of questions.

"But what can you tell us?" the host pressed, and Steve gave in.

"It was just an idea. After Thor's first appearance on Earth, SHIELD thought they needed a response team, people to fight the battles they couldn't. They considered myself, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, and two of their own."

"Why didn't the team work?"

"Like I said, it was only an idea. We were a very…volatile group. We pulled together to do what needed to be done, but in the end, the SHIELD higher ups decided against pursuing it. We went our separate ways."

"Where to?"

"Various places." Steve shrugged. "Thor went home. The Hulk went back into hiding. Iron Man resumed work as Mr. Stark's bodyguard."

"Do you still see them?"

"Not much. Iron Man, occasionally. We share territory."

"You, Black Widow, and Hawkeye were the only ones to stay affiliated with SHIELD, is that correct?"

"Yes." Steve nodded. "They found me."

"Do you feel like you owe them for that?"

"No." Steve shook his head firmly. He'd made that clear from minute one. "It's my choice to remain employed by them."

"Have you ever considered a more simple life?"

"Simple?" Steve echoed.

"Settling down, raising a family?" The host clarified.

"I'm a soldier, first and foremost. I'll always be a soldier. If my country needs me, I'm going to be there."

"What if your country didn't need you?"

"Tell you what," Steve laughed. "When the world can manage to stay saved for a day, you let me know, alright?"

* * *

"We interrupt this broadcast to bring you news of a deadly, high speed pursuit. The armed gunmen are travelling northbound on 14th street—"

Tony had a brief moment of debate; he glanced at his watch.

"Plenty of time." Tony decided to himself, then announced, "JARVIS, engage suit."

"As you wish, sir." JARVIS answered, and Tony was glad he'd taken the right car.

He leaned back as autosteer engaged and the windows blacked out for privacy. His chair stretched back until he lay flat, and the Iron Man suit assembled around him. Meanwhile, his dashboard changed, revealing a screen that mapped out where he would intercept the gunmen. Another six blocks; he hit the brakes, pulled up along the curb and hopped out. He was about to take off down the street, but a little old lady toddled right in front of him.

"Armed gunmen, kind of in a hurry—"

"My cat Squeaker won't come down!" she demanded, "You simply have to get him!"

"Armed gunmen are a little more impor—" Tony paused, glancing at the map JARVIS had pulled up on his HUD screen. The gunmen were coming this way. Actually, he could use that tree to— "Stand clear, ma'am."

Tony shot over to the tree, grabbing it by the base and uprooting it from the ground. He turned it to the side, shaking it over the grass to get the cat to let go. Man, that thing had a hell of a grip—

"Sir, the gunmen are turning down this street," JARVIS informed him.

"Shit," Tony muttered, shaking the tree harder.

The stupid cat finally released it's claws, just in time for Tony to whip the tree around and slam it down in front of the criminals' car, stopping them short. The police thanked him profusely, and the elderly lady offered to bake him a pie; all in a day's work. While he was finishing up with the police, he overheard their scanner announcing a tour bus robbery.

"JARVIS, do you need another defrag?"

"I beg your pardon?" JARVIS declared as indignantly as an AI was capable.

"Why didn't you tell me there was a robbery in progress?" He waved to the police once more before heading back to the car, he needed to lock it before leaving it here to go after the robbers.

"All due respect sir, you don't have the time, and there are more superheroes in the city capable of—"

"More superheroes, yes. More capable, I don't think so." Tony smirked, opening his door just to press the lock button. "And relax, I've got time—"

"Where to next?"

"What the—?" Tony sputtered at the pipsqueak sitting in his car. "Get out of my car!"

"But I'm Iron Boy!" the kid declared, planting his hands on his waist, bouncing in his seat a little. He was maybe twelve or thirteen; he had various gadgets wired to his hands and feet, and something that looked an awful lot like adapted swimming goggles strapped to his head.

"What? No." Tony frowned. "Wait a minute, I recognize you, you're that kid from the fan club! Jake. Jimmy. No, Justin. Justin!"

"My name is Iron Boy!"

"Look, I've been nice," Tony insisted, "And that's new for me, really. I've posed for photos, signed every scrap of paper you've pushed at me, but this is—"

"No no no, you don't have to worry about training me!" The kid moved closer with every word, smile wide and eager, eyes bright with fanaticism. "I know all your moves, your crime-fighting styles, favorite catchphrases, everything! I'm your number one fan!"

"JARVIS?"

"Sir?"

"Eject."

JARVIS obeyed, having the car eject the boy out onto the grass. Tony locked his car up and punched the repulsors, shooting off into the sky without a backwards glance. He had JARVIS use satellite footage to track the robber down, and cornered him on a rooftop only ten blocks away. New York, man. All the crazies.

"You can tell a lot about a woman from the contents of her purse." Tony observed as he landed, scaring the hell out of the robber, who'd been huddled up and counting his loot. "But I don't think that's what you were going for."

"Hey!" The guy wheeled around, drawing a gun. "Stay ba—"

He dropped like a rock when a flash of red white and blue collided with his skull.

The owner of the patriotic shield stepped out of the shadows, as devastatingly handsome as ever, and he raised a hand to catch his trademark weapon on the rebound.

"Captain America." Tony smiled openly, since the faceplate would hide any overly pleased expressions.

"Iron Man." Cap shot him an amused look, and Tony got the distinct feeling he knew full well what Tony's facial expression was, faceplate or not. Cap reached down to scoop up the robber by his shirt, and Tony stepped forward.

"I've got this one."

"Sure you got him." Cap shrugged and dropped the robber with a hint of a smirk, who moaned as he hit the ground again. "I just took him out for you."

"Of course you took him out, his attention was all on me."

"A fact I exploited to do my job."

"My job, you mean."

"A simple thank you will suffice."

"Thanks, but I don't need any help."

"Hey, look," the robber hoisted himself up, pointing out, "Captain America did get me first—"

Cap used the flat side of shield to bang against the robber's head, and he was down for the count again without Cap ever taking his gaze from Tony.

"We could share, you know." Cap suggested, moving a step closer, a flirty little smirk on his lips.

"I work alone," Tony reminded him, though he was thankful for the way the faceplate hid his likely enamored face. Captain America flirting with him would never get old.

"Maybe you ought to try being a little more…" Cap leaned in, his lips brushing against the side of the faceplate. "Flexible."

The images that cascaded through Tony's mind would put the porn industry to shame.

"Hey, you free tonight?" Tony caught Cap's hand as he turned away.

"I have a previous engagement."

Cap shot him a fond, amused smile, before continuing his turn, walking to the edge and leaping right off the building. Tony's heart plummeted for a moment, as it always would, but a glance over the edge showed Cap landing on and swinging into a perfectly timed SHIELD-issue quinjet. He'd probably had a comm in the whole time.

Tony shook his head with a fond smile of his own, scooping up the robber and throwing him over his shoulder. He flew him over to the police station, dropping him off on the front steps. No one seemed around; that was odd.

"Hey, Iron Man!"

Tony would know those metallic tones anywhere; he turned with a grin to wave as War Machine zoomed through the sky.

"Hey, War Machine!" He looked to be chasing a rogue helicopter with smoke on it's tail and gunmen firing at him out the open sides. "Need a hand?"

"Nah. Shouldn't you be getting ready?"

"I've got time!" Tony waved him off, watching as he took out the helicopter and it's occupants with his usual military efficiency. Tony let him do his thing; he was more curious where all the cops had disappeared to, anyway.

"JARVIS, what's the word with the NYPD?"

"Sir, you really ought to be heading to—"

"Everyone's in such a rush today." Tony snorted. "I've got time, lay it on me."

"If you say so, sir." JARVIS' disapproval was evident, but he continued. "It's a busy night, but it seems the most officers are gathered at a bank in central downtown, attempting to talk down a jumper."

"See? That's an easy one, I've got plenty of time and I'll save a life in the process." Tony hit the repulsors, shooting back into the sky and towards the bank. "It's all about effective time management, J."

"Yes, sir. Miss Potts is always saying how very good you are at that."

"I'll erase those sarcasm codes you're so fond of, don't think I won't." Tony huffed, but it was an empty threat. "How's our jumper doing? Got any footage for me?"

"There are unfortunately no useful surveillance available at that altitude."

Tony was only just approaching the scene as the figure jumped. He punched the repulsors, and did a quick calculation; he wouldn't make it in time to cushion the fall or catch the guy properly, he'd have to just—

Tony slammed into the jumper, and they crashed through a window of the building he'd jumped from. It wasn't a fun landing, but it was better than the one that had been waiting for him on the pavement. He'd managed to spin them in the air enough so he hadn't crushed the guy at least.

"I think I broke something," the guy moaned.

"With counseling, I'm sure you'll forgive me." Tony snorted. He started to help the guy up, before pausing. "JARVIS?"

"Sir?"

Was that…beeping?

"Scan the floor," Tony ordered.

He hauled the guy up and moved him over by a couple desks while JARVIS did the scan. He left the jumper there, still bemoaning his injuries, while he flew over to the hallway. The sound got louder. That wasn't beeping, that was ticking, that was a—

"I detect a—"

JARVIS was interrupted by the wall nearest to Tony exploding, covering the room with dust and debris. When it cleared, Tony caught sight of a metal mask and green cape he knew all too well.

"Doctor Doom," Tony growled.

"Iron Man." Doom sneered.

"And Iron Boy!"

"Oh god." Tony groaned, turning to look.

The boy—Jason?—was standing in the window, the metal contraptions around his ankles sputtering, a makeshift cape billowing. Great, now the idiot kid had a cape, too. Didn't he know no superhero worth their salt wore a cape?

Well, okay, Thor. But Thor was an exception to most norms.

"Hey hey hey!" John hit a button, and his sputtering rocket shoes blasted him over to where Tony and Doom were. "Aren't you curious about how I get around so fast? See, I have these rocket boots, they're—"

"Go home, Jack."

"Justin."

"Right. Go home."

"Look, you always say to be true to yourself, but you never say which part of yourself to be true  _to._ I'm not meant to be normal, or average. I've figured out who I am—I'm Iron Boy!"

"You're taking things too far. This is dangerous stuff, kid." Tony sighed, grabbing a sneaky Doctor Doom that had tried to tiptoe away behind him. He hoisted him up, but the kid just kept talking.

"This is because I don't have superpowers, isn't it? You don't need them. War Machine doesn't need them. Black Widow and Hawkeye don't need them. I don't either! Look, I invented these!" Jimmy pointed at his rocket boots. "I can fly!"

"Then fly home, James," Tony ordered, "I work alone."

"Yes, boy, fly home." Doctor Doom smirked. Tony might've noticed the sneaky look on the villain's face, if Jesse hadn't distracted him with all his babble.

"Come on, just give me a chance! Hey, I'll show ya, I'll go get the police!"

Tony spared the boy a glance as he left, only to belatedly see the bomb Doctor Doom had planted on his cape. It was always the fucking capes.

"Jeff, no!" Tony reluctantly released Doom, taking off after the kid. "Wait!"

"I can do this, trust me—"

"Josh, there's a—"

The kid took off out the open window, Tony hot on his tail. He tried to grab the bomb, clutching at the kid's cape and swinging him around.

"Hey, stop, you're wrecking my flight pattern!" the kid shouted, "Let go!"

"I'm trying to help!" Tony snapped, still trying to get a hold of that stupid little bomb. They flew through the night sky, dodging buildings every time they turned. "There's a bomb, you idiot, I'm trying to—"

"I can do this, if you just give me a chance!"

Jeremy kicked him in the face, the rocket boot giving off a flare of power that dented the faceplate in enough to bash Tony's nose. Tony let go with a shout of pain, though he made one last, finally successful swipe at the bomb. He plummeted a moment before regaining control of the thrusters, but the bomb kept falling. He shot off after it, not quite reaching it in time. It dropped onto one of the lightrail overpasses, detonating and taking out a large chunk of bridge.

Of course, because timing was everything and his sucked, he could already see the lights of the train coming down the track. It was heading straight for the gap created by the bomb, and Tony knew immediately they wouldn't have the time to stop; there was only one potential solution. He swooped in, landing on the track and planting his feet, readying the repulsors.

"Oh, this is going to hurt so fucking—"

That was all he managed before a train slammed into his chest.

He dug his feet in, but it still took too long for the train to slow down. It dropped over the edge some, and for a split second, Tony was certain it was going to go all the way. He was going to die buried in rubble with a train on top of him all because of some idiot kid with rocket boots. The train slowed to a stop before falling all the way off the edge, and Tony was able to push it back onto the track.

Well, he could add "hit by a train" to his Shit I've Survived list.

It took another hour to settle everything up; he hunted down Jared and handed him over to the police, instructing them to take him home and make sure the rugrat's parents knew what he'd been up to. Jerry went on and on about how he could help, how he was making a big mistake. Tony ignored him, instead checking with the cops about the jumper.

"You sent paramedics?"

"They've already picked him up." One of them nodded.

"Good. The blast in that building was caused by Doctor Doom, who I caught robbing the vault. Now we might be able to catch him again if we set up a perimeter—"

"You mean he got away?" The other cop frowned.

"Well, yeah." Tony scowled. "Joey here made sure of that."

"It's Iron Boy!"

"You're not affiliated with me!" Tony waved a warning finger at the boy, until his alarm went off and he felt all the blood drain from his face. " _Shit,_ I have to go—"

"What about Doctor Doom?" The same cop frowned deeper, taking a step towards Tony, who took three more back.

"Listen, any other night? All over it. Tonight? Kind of really, life-changingly important. We'll get him next time, it's not like these assholes don't break out of custody every other week anyway." Tony shot off into the sky, fast as his thrusters could go.

He was so late, so, so fucking late, he was going to be murdered the minute he walked in, how could he have possibly forgotten about the single most important moment of his entire pathetic life—

"You're late." Rhodey only raised an eyebrow as he entered the church lobby. He was pretty sure it wasn't actually called a lobby, but he also couldn't be bothered wasting the brainspace to remember what it was called. "Very, very late."

"But how do I look?" Tony held open his arms.

"Like Iron Man."

"Oh, shit. Right. JARVIS, deactivate." The armor rolled off him, folding up into a handy suitcase, which he handed to Rhodey while he fixed the classy suit he was wearing underneath. "Hide this for me?"

"If he kills you, no one in that room will stop him," Rhodey warned, but took the suitcase and stuffed it behind a potted plant.

"Hey, I agreed to set foot in a  _church_ for the guy, he can lighten up that I'm five minutes la—"

" _Half an hour—"_

"I got hit by a train, okay, I've been busy—"

"Hit by a  _what—"_

"Rhodey." Tony stopped just in front of the doors, taking a deep breath. Through these doors was the rest of his life. "He'll forgive me. Right?"

"He's refusing to let anyone step foot off the altar, if that tells you anything." Rhodey gave a chuckle. "He's pretty damn adamant you're going to show. Bucky tried to sneak out earlier and got glared at so hard the guy probably had a disapproval-induced heart attack."

"Sounds like him." Tony smiled, a touch anxiously. He glanced at Rhodey, telling both him and himself, "This is going to work. I swear it. On Iron Man, on my life, on  _his_ life, I will make this work. Whatever I have to do."

"It'd probably help if you went in and got your ass hitched already." Rhodey grinned, planting both hands on Tony's back and shoving hard.

The room burst into noise as Tony stumbled in, a collection of cheers and groans and swear words, some of them all three. Tony just kept walking, Rhodey two steps behind him. They joined the rest of the wedding party, and Tony offered a weak smile to his husband-to-be.

"I love you?"

Steve—beautiful, perfect, wonderful Steve—just wrapped both arms around his waist, pulling him into both a hug and kiss.

"I knew you'd come," Steve murmured against his lips.

How he'd convinced this man to marry him, Tony would never know. Yet here they were, and in front of every friend they'd ever made. Rhodey clasped a hand to his shoulder, joining his side as best man. Bucky stood at Steve's, though he reached over to punch Tony's shoulder.

"Get a watch, Stark."

"It's called fashionably late, Barnes, which you would know if you'd ever been fashionable in your life."

"Right, because hot rod red and gaudy gold is so much more fashionable than black—"

"Did you just call me  _gaudy_ at my  _wedding—"_

"The one you're  _late to_ — _"_

"Barnes." Natasha pinned Bucky with a single, dangerously raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, let them hurry up and get hitched already so we can get to the afterparty!" Clint complained, turning in his pew to look hopefully at Thor. "You did bring booze this time, right?"

"Aye, indeed I did!" Thor boomed back, though they were only a few feet apart.

"Fuck yeah!" Darcy fist-pumped. "Asgardian afterparty, booyah!"

"Could you maybe consider not swearing in a church?" Jane sighed.

"Jane, there's literally a god sitting next to you, and I don't think he minds the swearing." Clint grinned at Thor.

"Should you really be allowed around Asgardian alcohol?" Bruce raised an eyebrow at Clint.

"I don't think any one of these people should be allowed around Asgardian alcohol," Pepper muttered to Happy, who snorted.

"Excuse you." Clint made an indignant face at Bruce. "I am an utter angel—"

"Playing cupid doesn't make you an angel," Phil told him dryly, "Particularly not when you use real arrows."

"In my defense, there was actually very little maiming last time—"

Steve cleared his throat with authority. The room fell silent.

"If you all don't mind, I'd like to get married."

The ceremony was incredibly long. Tony wasn't sure how Steve had talked him into a religious wedding, but he was fairly sure it had involved the deadly combination of puppy dog eyes, sexual favors, and the phrase "eternity means nothing if it's not with you". Tony didn't believe in a god, or an afterlife; he never would. That was something they'd both come to terms with in their relationship. What he did believe in was Steve, and hearing the man he loved say something like that, whether or not he believed in the accuracy of it happening, would always do funny things to his heart.

And apparently his brain, since he'd actually let himself be talked into this.

"You know…" Steve murmured next to him as the priest droned on, "When you asked me if I was doing anything later, I didn't realize you'd actually forgotten."

"I didn't, I promise. I was just…" Tony huffed a sigh. "Sidetracked. Besides, weren't you the one saying I ought to be more flexible?"

A frown twitched at Steve's lips.

"I love you. Nothing will ever change that, but if we're going to make this marriage work, you've got to be more than Iron Man. I need you to be Tony,  _my_ Tony, too." Steve glanced at him, worry in his too blue eyes. "You know that, don't you?"

"—so long as you both shall live?" The priest finished speaking right as Steve did.

For all the bad timing Tony had today, hell, for all the bad timing he'd had in his entire, crazy life, he'd do it all again for this one, perfectly timed moment.

"I do."


	2. Chapter 2

"— _and in a turn of events that stunned everyone, a superhero was sued for saving someone who apparently didn't want to be saved. The plaintiff, Oliver Sansweet, whose suicide attempt was foiled by Iron Man, filed a suit against the famed superhero in superior court. See a clip of the action outside the courthouse on the day of the preliminary hearing._

' _Mr. Sansweet didn't ask to be saved; Mr. Sansweet didn't_ want  _to be saved. And the result of Iron Man's actions causes my client daily pain.'_

' _Hey, I saved your life!'_

' _You didn't save my life, you ruined my death!'_

' _Listen, you ungrateful little—!'_

' _My client has no further comment at this time.'_

_Just five days later, another suit was filed against the then-notorious Iron Man, by the victims of the L train accident. Though Iron Man was sponsored by StarkIndustries, who paid for all losses incurred by the bumbling 'hero', these suits opened the floodgates for dozens of lawsuits across the world. See now a clip of New York's mayor speaking on behalf of the city._

' _It is time for their secret identities to become their only identities. Time for them to join us, or go away.'_

_Under tremendous public pressure and the crushing financial burden of an ever-mounting series of lawsuits, SHIELD, the government division for superhuman management, quietly initiated the Superhero Relocation Program. The supers would be granted amnesty from responsibility for past actions in exchange for the promise to never again resume hero work._

_Where are they now? They are living among us. Average citizens, average heroes, quietly and anonymously continuing to make the world a better—"_

"Hey Pete, whatcha watching?"

Peter's dad popped his head into the living room, and Peter quickly paused the show. Catching sight of the banner flashing across the screen— _Superheroes Live Among Us—_ Dad sighed. He entered the room fully, wiping his greasy hands on a rag. He'd probably only come up for air; he'd didn't usually come out of the shop until Pops dragged him out.

"So. Still into the whole superhero thing, huh?"

"I just…I can't believe the public turned on them like that." Peter shook his head, eyes still glued to the screen. "They were doing so much good, and the SRP just…shut them down."

Today marked the fifteen year anniversary of the Superhero Relocation Program, or the SRP, which was why there was a special about it on TV. Peter had always been fascinated with superheroes, but his interest had peaked a few months ago when, while on a school tour of Oscorp, he'd been bitten by a spider and developed powers of his own. Now, he couldn't get enough. He devoured information on superheroes, on what started the upswing of them, what it had been like in their heyday, the SRP and why it'd been instigated. There were no technical laws against superheroing, but the public had rebelled so violently against it that no one dared anymore for fear of lawsuits and government intervention.

He'd only been two when the SRP had been instigated. He couldn't remember what it had been like when superheroes were still around, though he wished he could. He'd still been with his birth parents then; his dads hadn't adopted him until he was four, after the fire. He wondered sometimes if it weren't for the SRP, maybe a superhero would've been around to save his birth parents, his aunt, his uncle. It was a catch-22, though—if they'd been saved, his dads never would've adopted him, and he wouldn't have the family he had now.

He loved his dads. He couldn't remember much of anything before they'd adopted him, but he did remember them surrounding him with love and support from minute one. They could be overbearing at times, and occasionally humiliatingly in love with each other, but then, most of his friends' parents were divorced, separated indefinitely, or spent all their time screaming at each other. He knew he was lucky, even if they didn't really support his superhero obsession.

He guessed they must be SRP supporters or something. They didn't even like the mention of superheroes, much less Peter's scavenged collection of action figures and comic books. Comic books were actually still pretty popular—Pops was an illustrator for one of the big name companies, which, hello, way to be a hypocrite—but people seemed to prefer the idea of heroes to the actual thing. Peter worried how his parents would react if they ever found out he had powers. If they'd be angry with him, or worse, disappointed.

"The public is fickle, Peter." Dad shrugged, dropping down on the couch next to him. "You know that better than most."

It was true. Dad owned StarkIndustries, a green energy electronics company that basically powered the world. There were few households these days that didn't contain some SI technology, or weren't run by some SI-innovated energy solution. Dad had been the one to propel it to the height of it's success, and for a while, Peter had dealt very intimately with public opinion. Dad had stepped down to Chief Technology Officer a few years ago though, handing the title of Chief Executive Officer off to Mrs. Hogan, his former assistant. They weren't quite the celebrities they'd once been, but they were still ambushed on occasion, particularly when SI was in the news too much.

"I guess," Peter admitted, "But I still can't imagine why the public would turn on people who did nothing more than try and protect them. They were saving lives, why couldn't people see that?"

"You're a special kid, you know that?" Dad shot him a quirked, half-smile, then swiped the remote. "But enough of this superhero talk. We've got to get through CSI before Pops gets home and steals my damn TV again."

"You mean  _our_ damn TV?" Pops smirked from the doorway, dropping his briefcase and crossing the room. He snatched the remote from Dad as he did, before plopping down next to Peter. "Grey's Anatomy is new, Tony, don't deprive me."

"I'm not depriving you, I'm saving you, I'm stopping that trash from rotting your brain." Dad reached across Peter to try and steal the remote back, but Pops held it aloft. "Steve, come on—"

"It's not trash just because it's a little more dramatic than you like."

"It's dramatic because it's a soap opera, which is definitely trash."

"Why don't we just watch my show?" Peter suggested. Pops glanced at the TV, then at Dad over Peter's shoulder.

"Superheroes again?"

"Superheroes again."

"Yeah, still sitting right here, dads."

"I know, sport." Pops sighed the same sigh Dad had. "Don't you think there's anything else you're interested in, though?"

"It's not the  _only_ thing I'm interested in," Peter protested, "I'm on yearbook and in science club, and I build stuff with Dad in the shop all the time. Why can't I like superheroes too?"

"You can," Dad said hastily, "We're not saying you can't. We're just…surprised. They're a little outdated."

"Saving lives never stops being cool, Dad." Peter frowned.

Dad and Pops exchanged a glance.

"Alright." Dad shook his head with a smile. "You want to watch the superhero special, we'll watch the superhero special."

"Could you rewind it?" Peter bounced excitedly.

"Sure." Pops chuckled.

"— _plaintiff, Oliver Sansweet, whose suicide attempt was foiled by Iron Man, filed a suit against the famed superhero in superior court. See a clip of the action outside the courthouse on the day of the preliminary hearing._

' _Mr. Sansweet didn't ask to be saved; Mr. Sansweet didn't_ want  _to be saved. And the result of Iron Man's actions causes my client daily pain.'_

' _Hey, I saved your life!'_

' _You didn't save my life, you ruined my death!'_

' _Listen, you ungrateful little—!'"_

Pops snorted at Iron Man's outburst, and Dad made a face at him. Peter ignored their antics. He'd long since learned not to try and understand the freaky mind reader thing they did. They claimed it came from eighteen years of marriage, but Peter was pretty sure they were just strange.

"' _My client has no further comment at this time.'_

_Just five days later, another suit was filed against the then-notorious Iron Man, by the victims of the L train accident. Though Iron Man was sponsored by StarkIndustries, who paid—"_

"Did you ever get to work with him, Dad?" Peter asked, talking over the announcer excitedly.

"Uh, well." Dad cleared his throat. "He was my bodyguard for close to a decade. Did I never mention that? I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that—"

" _No_ you never mentioned that!" Peter exclaimed, "Dad!"

"It was a different time, Peter, supers were everywhere." Dad waved him off. "It wasn't a big deal—"

"You knew the  _greatest superhero of all time_ and it's  _not a big deal?"_

"I thought Captain America was the greatest superhero of all time." Pops frowned. "That's what you said last year when you wanted a Captain America-themed birthday party."

"They both were—they  _all_  were. The Avengers," Peter said reverently, "They were the best of the best."

"They only worked together the once—" Dad tried to point out.

"Yeah, but there was never another team like them." Peter shook his head. "And all the comics say they assisted each other over the years, kept in touch—"

"You can't believe everything you read, Peter," Pops reminded him.

"But more importantly, who was the best Avenger?" Dad asked. "Iron Man was clearly the coolest, not to mention the strongest—"

"He was not, Captain America was twice as strong." Pops snorted.

"Like hell he was." Dad made an indignant face.

"Cap's stat card says he has the strength of ten men—" Peter pointed out.

"Hah, I told—!" Pops started.

"—while Iron Man's card says he can lift 100 tons while in the armor," Peter finished.

"Suck on that, old man!" Dad jabbed a finger at Pops' chest, sticking out his tongue.

"That's  _completely_ inaccurate—!" Pops protested.

"Read the stat cards and weep." Dad grinned smugly.

"Well, Thor and Hulk were actually stronger than both of them though," Peter reminded them, unsure why they were suddenly so into it when all they'd ever done was tell him superheroes were old news, "Thor was listed as 200 tons, and Hulk could lift 100 tons when in a functionally calm state but when enraged his strength was listed as incalculable."

"Yeah, okay, but Thor's an alien so he doesn't count and the Hulk can't fly, so obviously Iron Man—" Dad began.

"Actually, the Hulk could sort of fly, his stat card says he could cross miles in one jump, and his specialty card said he once leapt all the way into the Earth's atmosphere—"

"Bullshit!" Dad protested, "That never happened!"

"Yeah, it was in his comic and everything—"

"The comics were highly exaggerated," Pops agreed with Dad, "I should know, I think I worked on that one—"

"And you let that  _slide—"_ Dad seemed appalled.

"It made for a good story," Pops protested, "But Hulk couldn't  _really_ leap into space. Captain America leapt off buildings though—"

"Into a quinjet, anyone could do that." Dad rolled his eyes.

"Let's see you try it without—without anything special." Pops challenged.

"I could totally—"

"Please, you'd break your hip—"

"Are you calling me  _old—"_

"I think I have homework to do," Peter decided, though they were far from listening to him anymore. He squeezed out from between his bickering parents, grabbed his backpack from beside the couch, and headed off down the hall.

"Those crow's feet sure aren't calling you young—"

"You said they give me character!"

"It's not a _bad_ thing—"

"Well ex _cuse_ me, Mr. Perpetually Twenty-Five—"

"I'm just saying you couldn't leap off a building—"

"I could too! I still work out you asshole, I could land on the quinjet in my sleep—"

Peter shut the door to his room, letting it muffle their continued banter. He always tried to evacuate the room as quickly as possible once they got going, because sticking around only ever led to them eventually glancing at him and suddenly "remembering" they'd forgotten something in their bedroom before disappearing for hours. Peter shuddered. Gross.

Peter's room was his sanctuary; his parents rarely came in, both believing that having personal space was good for a family. Dad had his workshop, Pops had his art studio, and Peter had his room. He'd been allowed to design it the way he'd wanted, which meant it was covered in a pretty heavy amount of superhero gear these days. He didn't have bedsheets or anything, he wasn't a little kid anymore, but he had action figures on his shelves and a storage space for the comics.

He also had three bookshelves, double-stacked and practically bursting. He'd been a heavy reader from minute one, not that he'd had any choice in this house; both his parents devoured books like nobody's business. They read different things, Pops leaning towards history and philosophy while Dad went for the hard sciences and academic essays, but they had a fair amount of overlap and were always trading books and arguing over themes and author's bias and the validity of different points. It had been sort of impossible for Peter not to pick up the same obsession with reading, and he'd been involved in their literature debates since middle school. He didn't often win—his parents had never been the "let him win, it'll boost his spirit" types—but it meant that when he did win he knew he'd earned it.

His desk was fairly large and brimming with tech, mostly his somewhat bulky computer and all his camera equipment. He'd built his own computer and designed a personal interface; he'd refused help from Dad, so it probably wasn't as sleek or efficient as it could be, but he'd done it himself and was damn proud. He killed a few hours on it now, messing around and touching up some photos, until Rowan barreled in.

"Hey Pete!" Rowan gave a wide, toothy grin as he threw himself on Peter's bed. "What's up?"

"Yearbook stuff." Peter clicked out, saving it before spinning in his chair. "Come on, get off my bed."

"But yours is bigger'n mine." Rowan complained but obeyed, hopping off right as Emma walked in, Alexander in her arms.

"Seriously, knocking, it's a thing," Peter pointed out, but Emma just rolled her eyes.

"Whatever. You're making dinner, right?"

Emma Banner and Rowan Blake were his neighbors, though they were really more like his siblings. They'd lived next door to him since the beginning of time, and they'd all grown up playing together in their connected backyards while their parents, the kind of best friends other people only saw in TV shows, chatted away over drinks and barbeque.

Peter was the oldest, seventeen; Emma was fifteen, a freshman at his high school this year, and Rowan was ten, a fifth grader with a baby brother, Alexander. Alexander's dad insisted on no nicknames—"The boy's name is Alexander, Alexander he will be called."—though Peter's own dad liked to call him Alex, Al, Zander, anything to tease Don. The others just called him Bug for short, since he had adorably wide, bright blue bug eyes and it was a nickname Don would concede since it didn't shorten Alexander's actual name.

Peter didn't really have any memories that didn't involve them in some form or another; the kids had always just referred to each other as siblings, and their parents encouraged it. Their whole family was pretty large, five houses worth, all lined next to each other. The Banners were farthest to the left—Tasha, Bruce and Emma. Tasha was a paper-pusher for SHIELD, though she'd picked up a few moves there that she'd passed on to them over the years for self-defense. Bruce was a professor at NYU, in the same science department as Jane, Rowan and Alexander's mom. The Blakes lived in the house at the other end, farthest to the right, and their dad, Don, was a doctor.

Peter lived between the Banners and the Rhodes'-Barnes', or Barnes'-Rhodes', depending on who you asked. That was Rhodey and Bucky, who weren't actually married but engaged-to-be-engaged, as soon as they could stop arguing about who should take whose name and why, or whose name should go first if they hyphenated and why. Between them and the Blakes were the Coulsons, Phil and Clint, two more paper-pushers for SHIELD. They were cool, though they couldn't have a more boring how-we-met story: apparently, Phil had gotten Clint to do paperwork. Considering their job, Peter wasn't really sure how that was special, but everyone laughed when they mentioned it, so.

There had been a time Peter had been embarrassed about it all, about the makeshift, "not real" portion of his family. Emma had been getting picked on at school, and instead of standing up for his sister like he should've, Peter had said he didn't know her. It had been a brief moment of weakness in middle school, but when he admitted it to his parents, they'd sat him down for a long,  _long_  talk. They reminded him—gently, but firmly—that Peter wasn't related to them by blood, either. Family was chosen, was made, and it had nothing to do with whose blood was running in whose veins. That wasn't what family was about, and they wouldn't stand for it.

Peter hadn't made that mistake again.

This kind of family, unfortunately, meant a weekly babysitting gig; the adults all went bowling once a week—yeah, they were  _that_ kind of lame—which meant Peter got stuck watching the others while they went out. He'd resented it for a while, but that all changed a few months ago.

Now, he got to go out and play superhero once a week.

Not that he left his siblings alone, or anything. Emma came with him; thanks to the martial arts classes her mom had insisted she take since pretty much birth, his sister was fierce as hell. She was kind of big for her age, not really overweight so much as tall and more athletic than average, though her dad's rounded features made her seem deceptively soft. In reality, she could probably kick Pops' ass, and Pops, as Dad liked to say, was pretty much 250 solid pounds of all-American muscle.

So yeah, he brought Emma with him, because spider-powers or no, she was totally an asset. Plus, she'd have ratted him out if he didn't bring her along. Rowan couldn't come, obviously; he was only ten. Peter was responsible though of course, and left him with a sitter instead.

His friend, Wade.

That wasn't as irresponsible as it sounded. Alright, so Wade had a couple screws loose, but he'd sworn up and down like ten million times that he wouldn't touch anything sharp. He was also eerily good with babies—though Alexander was a chubby, giggly ball of happiness and adored everyone anyway, so it'd be hard to make him unhappy—and Rowan thought Wade was the coolest thing since candy. This meant Rowan didn't tell the parents, which meant Peter and Emma got to keep playing superhero.

So, really, everyone won.

"I'll make pizza before—" Peter cut himself off as Pops opened the door. He covered it with, "Come on, Pops, at least pretend to knock."

"My house, my door, I can open it without knocking." Pops just chuckled. "I hear you're making pizza?"

"Yeah." Peter nodded. Alexander extended his squishy arms towards Peter, waving and making noises to be picked up, so Peter took him from Emma. "Hey there, bug."

"My Petey-bird's your favorite, isn't he, Alexander?" Pops held out a finger to Alexander, who grasped it eagerly with a bubbly little giggle. "Yes he is, huh?"

Emma snickered at Peter, who scowled at the old nickname. At his insistence, his dads had stopped calling him Petey-bird after he turned thirteen, though it still came out sometimes. He wasn't a kid anymore; it was embarrassing, even if Emma had heard it before.

"Pops, you're making the weird voice again," Peter complained instead.

"No I'm not, silly," Pops said, his voice just as high and goofy as before.

Pops didn't take his eyes of Alexander for a minute, even as he spoke. He always made weird baby voices around little kids, particularly Alexander. He was completely enamored; Dad kept saying if they didn't watch out, Peter was going to have another little sibling soon enough. Peter couldn't tell if he was kidding or not.

"Yes, honey, you are." Dad entered the room with an amused smile, patting Pops on the shoulder and leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. "Come on, I think our own baby's got things handled."

"I'm not a baby, Dad." Peter rolled his eyes, bouncing Alexander in his arms a bit.

"Sure." Dad just chuckled, leaning in to kiss his cheek next.

"You leaving soon, or what?" Peter responded moodily, resisting the urge to wipe the kiss off his cheek. If he did, Dad wouldn't leave without peppering ten more where he'd wiped off the one.

"Yeah, we better hurry." Dad glanced at his watch, like the dumb bowling alley was magically going to fill up with people or something. "Rhodey and Bucky already left. You guys gonna be okay on your own for dinner? There's pizza, and plenty of leftovers."

"Yeah, we'll be fine." Emma nodded. "We've got leftovers at our place, too, Dad's pesto pasta."

"Banner pesto pasta; I envy you kids." Dad ruffled Peter's hair, and he scowled a little more. "You know the drill, Pete. No parties, no friends over, no going out. If you need anything we'll have our cells on, and we'll be back around midnight if you don't."

"And don't wait up, you have school tomorrow," Pops reminded him.

"Yeah, dads, I think I got a handle on it the first ten hundred times." Peter sighed. They went over the protocol every. Single. Time.

"Good." Pops stopped wiggling Alexander's finger long enough to press a loud kiss to the baby's cheek, then to Peter's hair, before stepping back with a smile. "See you tomorrow, kids."

"I don't know why you always say that when we all know you're both just gonna come in and kiss me goodnight again." Peter rolled his eyes. They always did.

"You bet we are. See you at midnight, Pete." Dad just chuckled, tugging Pops along.

He was always eager for the so-called night out, like bowling wasn't the dumbest activity ever invented. It was kind of embarrassing, but that was his parents. He loved them and all, but he was painfully aware of how ridiculously boring they were. Happy marriage, steady day jobs, a kid, a white picket fence house in suburbs next to all their high school best friends…they screamed cliché.

"See ya." Peter waved over his shoulder. As soon as the door closed, he turned to Emma. "Five minutes?"

"Ten." She shook her head. "Wait until they're out of the driveway, Peter, come on."

"Well, sorry, Harriet the Spy, I forgot you're such an expert." Peter snorted.

"I'm patient." Emma corrected, flipping her hair back with another patented eye roll.

There were a lot of those lately. Emma used to look up to him like some kind of god, but since she'd turned fifteen a month or so ago, he'd quickly spiraled to loser-that-existed-in-her-vague-peripheral. He could stick to  _walls_ and she still thought she was cooler than him. Whatever; teenagers, man.

"Fine. You be patient. I'll change." Peter passed Alexander to Emma, ignoring the little guy's whine. "One minute, buddy. Emma, go feed him while I change, when Wade does it baby food gets everywhere."

"Wade's coming? Does that mean I can watch cartoons again?" Rowan interrupted with a shout, and Peter turned to see him jumping on his bed.

"Hey, get off!" Peter reached out to grab him, and Rowan just laughed before taking a huge, wild leap off the bed instead. That he landed on his feet instead of braining himself on Peter's dresser was nothing short of a miracle.

"Short stack, did you just break gravity?" Emma boggled at the little blond, but Rowan was streaking already off down the hallway, shouting excitedly about candy and cartoons.

"I really need to talk to Wade about what he exactly he does when he's over." Peter sighed, pulling out his phone and firing off a text.

_Parents just left. Come over in ten. No candy this time._

_You got it Spidey~!_

_Stop calling me Spidey_

_Nó_

_I don't think 'no' has an accent. Also, how did you even do an accent with your shit cell?_

_Es un mysterio_

_I don't think any of that was accurate_

Peter put his phone down and began rooting through his dresser while Emma took Alexander out to the kitchen. Peter quickly removed all the clothes in the top drawer and opened up the false bottom, pulling out the outfit he'd stashed there: hoodie, jeans, gloves, his old skateboarding kneepads and elbow pads, a half-mask that went up over his nose, ski goggles, converse shoes, the whole nine yards. Though Peter's original design plans had been red and blue, and he'd even found this great jacket with a spider on the back that would've been awesome, Emma had convinced him that stealth was more important than style. She could be a nag, but she was always spying on him, snooping through his stuff, so Peter figured she at least knew what she was talking about.

Last but not least, he took out the web shooters he'd designed, checking and double-checking the canisters. He'd be fine for tonight, though he'd definitely have to make more before next week. He shoved them and the rest of the outfit into his backpack and lugged it out into the kitchen, where Emma was feeding Alexander.

"Rowan's in the backyard. I think he's fighting the hose," she commented mildly.

"Why doesn't he do that when the parents are home?" Peter complained, but stepped out through the sliding glass back door anyway. "Rowan, buddy?"

"Peter, Peter, look, I'm a bilgesnipe!" Rowan rolled over with a grin, the hose between his teeth.

"You look more like a dog." Peter snorted.

" _No,_ I'm a  _bilgesnipe,"_ Rowan protested, wrinkling his nose, "Daddy tells me stories about 'em, says they're strong and ugly and trample everything in their path. I'ma trample you, Pete, watch out!"

Rowan let go of the hose, taking off across the grass to charge at him, running as fast as his stubby legs would go and making roaring sounds, presumably the sounds of a bilgesnipe.

"Okay, Rowan, sure, you're a— _oof!"_ The rest of Peter's sentence was knocked out of him, along with all the air in his lungs, as Rowan collided with his stomach with more force than Peter would've thought possible for such a little guy.

"Told ya!" Rowan crowed triumphantly, already hopping up and taking off in another direction, zooming across the yard for something else to tackle.

"Yeah, sure," Peter answered weakly, still on his back in the grass.  _Ow._

"A ten year old kid took out 'Spider-Man'." Emma snorted, leaning out the back door to make fun of him. "Nice."

"Shut up," Peter grumbled, "I wasn't expecting it."

Spider-Man was an inside joke; the only people who knew about Peter's powers were Emma and Wade. He'd told them his original idea, to dress up in red and blue, call himself Spider-Man, bring back the superheroes—it was Emma who'd told him it wasn't practical. SHIELD would catch him in less than 24 hours, and then where would they be? He'd be enrolled in that stupid Superhero Relocation Program; he'd have to move, to start all over, something that of  _course_ he didn't want, no matter how often Emma rolled her eyes at him or Rowan drove him crazy or Alexander got fussy.

So instead Emma had joined forces with him—she claimed it was to make sure he didn't get his stupid butt caught, but he knew it was because she wanted to help people too—and they stayed incognito. Black hoodies, dark jeans, half ski-masks, goggles, the whole nine yards. Frankly, they kind of looked like weird criminals, but it worked; they'd been doing this once a week for going on four months now, and they hadn't been caught once.

"Sure you weren't." Emma rolled her eyes. "Wade's at the door, let's get going."

Peter had wondered, briefly, if they were really doing the right thing. Superheroes could have been outlawed for a reason, right? But…he glanced at their shared backyard, at the cut and manicured lawn, the classic, simple houses it led up to, the white picket fence around it all. It was so… _boring_. This was what his parents liked, what they wanted out of life, that whole picture perfect, American dream thing. They wanted this life; fine.

Peter wanted the kind of life his parents couldn't even dream of.

* * *

"Okay, so I'm in deep shit, right? Nefario's got me backed up against a wall, one jolt of his death ray and I'm—" Clint dragged his fork across his throat, making the sign for dead. "Total goner. I haven't got a chance in hell, either; no cover, no backup, nothing. He's got my head on a platter, and what does he do?"

"He starts monologuing," Tony shook his head with a grin.

"He starts monologuing!" Clint waved his fork wildly, before finally taking a bite off it.

"Let me guess, he brought up your lack of powers," Bruce gave a soft snort, holding up the bread basket. "Anyone want more bread?"

"Up top." Bucky threw a hand in the air. Bruce tossed him a roll.

"Hell yeah he brought it up!" Clint continued with a scowl.

"дураков." Natasha rolled her eyes, stealing a bite off Bruce's plate.  _Fools._ "They always do."

"Even better, they'll still bring up the no powers thing when  _they_ don't have powers. Remember RayGuy?" Tony agreed between mouthfuls of salmon, "Shitty name, shittier costume, no powers to speak of? The guy made ray guns, that's it, and he tied me up once and went on for a damn half hour about all the ways I'm inferior because I have nothing more than a metal suit. I'm sitting there like, hey, I've got a suit, you've got a ray gun, let's deck it out and see who wins, right?"

"RayGuy…" Steve paused, thinking it over. "Wasn't that the one with the sonic disrupter?"

"You're thinking of Blastoid." Tony snorted.

"Blastoise?" Clint perked up. "You fought a Pokémon? How come I never heard about this one before?"

"Blast _oid,"_ Tony corrected.

"What's up with that, man?" Clint frowned. "Twenty years on the job, every creature imaginable, and we've never fought a Pokémon. You'd think someone would at least try."

"I knew a scientist obsessed with recreating them." Bruce chuckled. "No dice though, sorry."

"What are these 'Pokémon'?" Thor questioned Clint.

"You know how in Smash Bros Brawl, I kicked your ass with Charizard?" Bucky leaned past Rhodey to smirk at Thor.

"Debatable," Thor rumbled, "Go on."

"That's a Pokémon. So was the Pikachu character. They're basically animals that don't exist," Bucky explained.

"They have their own games," Jane added.

"Ah." Thor nodded sagely. "Does Rowan have these games?"

"I don't think so," she mused, "You can ask him."

"I will." He turned back to Clint. "And they do battle?"

"Great battle." Clint nodded, enthused. "They've got wicked attack moves and everything. Could actually give us a workout, unlike our usual wackjobs."

"Mouth closed." Phil rolled his eyes when Clint spat food as spoke.

"Yes, dear." Clint teased, rolling his eyes right back.

"Backtrack a minute." Rhodey frowned at Tony. "Why does Blastoid ring a bell? Was I involved with that one?"

"Guy shot sonic waves out of one hand," Tony mimicked it, 'shooting' at Rhodey, "Kind of like shitty repulsors, just made your ears ring, and—"

"One hand?" Bruce raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, just the one." Steve shook his head with a laugh, remembering now too. "Couldn't aim worth a damn with it, either."

"And he monologued like no other," Tony complained.

"The villain that doesn't monologue will be the villain that rules the world," Phil said.

"Perhaps, but your defeat is inevitable and I must tell you how!" Tony announced dramatically.

"After I detail the ways the world will soon be mine!" Clint cackled, rubbing his hands together.

"But first stay right there, unsupervised for just one moment, while I retrieve my charts so you can really get the full picture!" Bucky snorted.

"Zemo actually did show me a map of his attack plan once, kid you not." Steve shook his head.

"Oh!" Rhodey snapped his fingers at Tony. "I do remember Blastoid. You made  _me_  pick him up so you could finish some date!"

"It wasn't  _some_ date, it was  _the_ date," Tony protested, affronted.

"You still owe me. He burst into tears halfway to lockup; I looked like a supervillain hauling his pathetic ass around."

"I made you best man at the wedding that date led to, I think we can call it even." Tony snorted. Then, an eager challenge in his voice, "Unless you wanna take it down to the gym?"

They were in StarkTower, in the large banquet hall they used for their weekly meetings. After the Superhero Relocation Program was put into effect, they'd been ordered to lost touch with everyone but their significant others. SHIELD had even asked them to consider separating from those people as well, for their own safety as well as the public's, though in reality they probably just didn't want any supers romantically entangled since it made them harder to isolate.

Tony had laughed in Nick's face. Steve had led the way out the door.

They'd tried to stay out of contact with the others for a little bit, mostly so SHIELD wouldn't force the supposed "issue" of their marriage, but it hadn't worked for long. They'd all felt so…lost, those first few years. Steve remembered very vividly how it felt, like he was being forced to readjust to society all over again; he'd spent so much of his life as a soldier, a hero, that it was deeply strange to suddenly do nothing but work a nine to five. He'd had Tony—and don't ever get him wrong, Tony made a world of difference in any circumstance—but he'd still wanted his friends, his team, his _family._

These people were as much a part of his family as Tony and Peter were; he couldn't imagine going through the dreary, often dull motions of civilian life without them. It had started with phones calls. Weekly, then daily, then eventually meetings in secret, but when Natasha had gotten pregnant, the first of any of them to have a child, well…all pretenses of staying out of contact were abandoned. It was the baby shower—thrown mostly against Natasha's will—that had really set off SHIELD; they'd finally demanded what in the hell the Avengers thought they were doing, how on earth throwing each other baby showers was supposed to be "laying low" and "maintaining their civilian profiles".

Tony and Steve had responded by buying five houses directly next to each other. They were cutesy, TV-show-perfect clones that didn't fit any of the Avengers' tastes, but it had been a very nice, very obvious fuck-you to Nick that no one had been able to resist. It wasn't clear when exactly SHIELD officially gave up on getting them into line, but Steve would bet it was sometime around when Phil, SHIELD's poster man, moved in with Clint.

They still had to watch their tongues sometimes around the kids, but that was what their nights out were for. One day a week to talk about the good old days, to reminisce and share familiar stories and call Tony shellhead like he used to, hear Tony call him "Cap" and know that everyone knew the real story of the nickname, not some made-up military history doctored by SHIELD.

In spite of his grumblings about SHIELD, Steve was grateful they hadn't forced the issue any more than they had. The team had all intermarried over the years, but when the SRP had been put in place and SHIELD had initially tried to split them all apart, only he and Tony had been married. Thor and Jane had been together, and Clint and Phil had been…something, but if SHIELD had actually enforced the no communication rules, would they, or any of his other friends, still have ended up together? They were a close group, too interknit by the events that had brought and kept them together to really allow for outsiders. It was hard to imagine any one of them being truly happy with a civilian.

Steve was glad things had turned out the way they had, at least in that respect. Sure, he wished the SRP had never happened, wished he could be Captain America again, but after so long he could admit he'd grown accustomed to civilian life. As long as he had Tony, their family, their friends…he was alright, without Captain America. He missed the shield, missed being a hero, a soldier, but this was the way his life had gone and he was more than happy with it.


	3. Chapter 3

"Is that everyo— _shit!"_ Peter quickly dodged the flaming rafters as they collapsed, crumbling right where he'd been standing. The guys over each of his shoulders moaned, but remained unconscious.

"Both floors are clear." Emma darted past him, someone lofted over her shoulder as well. She didn't have his spideystrength, but she didn't seem to need it. If the building wasn't on fire, she probably wouldn't even be breaking a sweat. "We need to get out before—"

More of the rafters collapsed, blocking the hallway that led out to the street.

"Before that." Peter guessed.

"Yeah. That." Emma sighed.

"This way." He led her back down a different hallway, towards a wall that would connect them to the next building over.

"Are you kidding?" she protested, already reading his mind, "We can't just go smashing through walls—"

"Do you have another plan you'd like to share with the class?"

"The structure's too weak, the whole building will—"

"It's coming down anyway, come on, just stay right behind me and—"

Peter braced himself as he slammed into the wall. The fire had weakened it enough that with a burst of spideystrength he was able to punch through; Emma followed right after, smacking into his back, sending them and the people they'd just saved tumbling to the floor as the building on the other side of the wall collapsed in a fiery heap, blocking off the way they'd come in with a massive pile of rubble. They were both coughing up a lung from smoke inhalation and the cloud of dust settling over them now, but Peter glanced up at Emma, holding out one fist with a grin; she pounded it. She still had the mask and goggles on, but he knew she was grinning too.

"Nice work, 'Spidey'." She coughed.

"Better than burning alive, right?" he agreed, hoisting himself up. One glance at his surroundings though—diamonds, jewelry, glass cases—and the grin slipped right off his face. "Uh oh."

The alarm went off with a shriek, the lights snapping on harshly to reveal a high-end jewelry boutique. A cop burst through the door less than a second later, and both teenagers instinctively threw their hands up.

"We didn't do it!" Peter yelped.

"I know it  _looks_ like we're robbers—" Emma started to reason.

"Don't  _remind him—"_ Peter hissed.

"I'm not reminding him, idiot," Emma hissed back, "We're wearing ski masks and goggles, what do you thinkhe thinks? I'm just reasoning with—"

"Stop reasoning, it never helps," Peter snapped.

"Oh, yeah, shouting 'we didn't do it' was very convincing—"

"Both of you, quit talking and put your hands behind your head!" the cop ordered.

"Okay, sure, but let's just think about this for a minute—" Emma began.

"What did I say? Quiet!"

"You know, this is a really  _sticky_ situation." Emma glared at Peter, making some weird head gesture towards the cop. What? Was she trying to say this was his fault?

"Did you have a better plan?" Peter grouched, "I got us out of the building, didn't I?"

"Idiot." Emma rolled her eyes so hard it looked painful. "You know, it's like we're caught in his  _web_ or something."

"What?" Peter frowned for a beat, then, "Oh."

Peter snapped both wrists forward in a quick one-two. He hit the cop's gun with one shot and his face with the other, then grabbed Emma by the waist and took a third shot out the doorway to swing them both away. The cop was still clawing the web off his face as they swung out into the night, Emma clinging to him like velco.

"Could you maybe not dig claw marks into my ribs?"

"Sorry, trying not to  _fall to my death here,"_ Emma snapped.

She hated webslinging. At least, she hated the motions of it; she was practical, tactically-minded, and banked on it as an escape route more often than not. She just didn't like actually doing it.

"Em, you know I'm not going to drop you."

"Whatever. Can we just touch down on planet earth sometime soon, please?"

"Alright, alright." Peter swung up, landing on the nearest rooftop. "I don't understand how you hate it so much."

It was the closest to flying Peter had ever come, and it was the single most amazing feeling in the world. But Emma liked control, liked having something solid under her feet, and he supposed webslinging around was kind of the antithesis of solid ground.

"Let's just get back before Wade melts Rowan's brain with too much 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'." Emma shook her head.

Peter reached up to pull off his mask, but Emma's eyes went wide and he stopped.

"Wha—?"

"Watch out!"

Emma shot forward, diving to tackle him around the waist and nearly send them both off the edge of the building. He rolled with the tackle, crouching and grabbing Emma's arm to steady her while he threw up his other hand, ready to shoot at whatever had joined them.

It was a small silver orb, bouncing along the rooftop and rolling to a stop. A white light flickered, flashing once, twice, then extending, starting a scan. Emma opened her mouth, likely to tell him to get them out of range, but he was already grabbing her again and leaping back off the building. He threw out a shot of web to catch them and swing away, not far, just to the next building.

"Did it get a chance to scan?" Emma asked when they landed. He was better with technology than she was.

"I don't think so." Peter couldn't be sure. He squinted at the device; it was rolling around again, scanning the rooftop for lifeforms. When it came up negative it deactivated, falling still and silent.

"What do you think it is?"

"I've never seen anything like it." Peter frowned. He'd seen both better and worse, but nothing similar enough to hint at what it might do. His Dad would know, but then he'd have to explain how he got it in the first place.

"If it was an attack bot, it would've attacked first and scanned after," Emma reasoned, "Wouldn't it?"

"What, you think we should go back and let it scan us?"

"No." Emma frowned, too curious for her own good. "Maybe."

"It could just be specific." Peter shook his head. "I've never seen one like that, but weapons can be keyed into certain biometrics, eye scans, that sort of thing. Maybe it's a bomb that'll only explode when it finds it's target."

"Us?" Emma chewed on her lip a moment, then, "But how would whoever built it have gotten our biometrics in the first place?"

"Well…" Peter glanced back at the device. It still wasn't moving. "Maybe it's more advanced than eye scans. Maybe it could scan for our bodies."

"How would that help?"

"Theoretically, if someone's been observing us closely enough, if they took enough pictures from enough angles, they could create a 3-D replicate of us and feed the data to that thing," Peter theorized, "It wouldn't be specific, not close enough for a perfect id, but enough to be reasonably sure that if they dropped it close enough—like when we're the only two people on a rooftop—and it went off, it'd be taking us with it."

"We're sure it's a bomb?" Emma tilted her head, squinting at it curiously.

"Better safe than blown to bits, don't you think?" Peter snorted.

"I don't think it is, though." Emma shook her head, ignoring his sarcasm. "Wouldn't it still be looking for us, if it was?"

"Tell me you're not going to ask me to swing you back over so you can poke it with a stick."

"I'm not going to poke it with a stick." Emma rolled her eyes. "I'm going to let it scan me."

"Oh. Yeah. Let the unknown tech scan you and possibly die in a fiery explosion, totally better than my plan—"

"Peter—"

"No, there is no way in hell I'm explaining to your parents that I let y— _shit Emma don't—!"_

But she had a foot planted on the edge of the building before he could grab her, and leapt the fairly large gap between buildings with an easy grace that did nothing to stop Peter's heart from slamming into his throat. He threw back his head with a long, frustrated groan, quickly swinging over with every intention of hauling her away again, but by the time he joined her the bot had already plastered it's scanner over her face.

"Just so you know, if we die, I hate you and it's all your fault," Peter grumbled, "Also, if you live and I die, you still can't have my comic books."

"If you die and I don't, I'm going to take every single one out and breathe on them."

"Freak."

"Loser."

"Love you." Peter flinched as the bot began to scan his face next.

"We're not going to die." Emma rolled her eyes. "But duh."

"Area is secure." The bot beeped.

"Don'tkillmedon'tkillmedon'tkillme—"

"Commence message."

"I  _told_ you!" Emma crowed, shoving him in the arm.

"Shut up," Peter grumbled petulantly.

A hologram flickered to life, and a petite blonde woman in a grey pencil suit smiled at them benevolently.

"Hello, Spider-Man, Black Widow." Peter shot a glance at Emma, who looked just as confused. "Yes, we know who you are."

"You gave yourself a supername and didn't tell me?" Peter demanded. "And you  _recycled?_ Not cool—"

"I told you, I haven't decided yet." Emma frowned, squinting at the woman in confusion. "I'm not—"

"Rest assured, your secret is safe with us." The hologram cut her off. Not a live feed, then. "My name is Mirage. We have something in common; according to the government, none of us exist. Please pay attention as this message is classified and will not be repeated. I represent a top-secret government agency designing and testing experimental technology, and we have need of your…unique abilities. Something has happened at a remote testing facility—

"Crap, do you have a pen?" Emma patted herself down.

"Do  _you_ bring pens when we do this?" Peter held up his empty hands.

"You have more pockets than I do—"

"Why would I bring a pen?"

"I don't know, shut up, we're missing it."

" _You_ shut up."

"—could do incalculable damage to itself and to our facilities, jeopardizing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment and research," Mirage continued, "Because of it's highly sensitive nature, this mission does not technically exist. If you accept, your payment will be triple your current annual salary."

"Do you make a salary?" Peter glanced at Emma. "I don't make a salary."

"Yeah, like I have the time for that." Emma rolled her eyes. It was true. When she wasn't at school she was busy with honor society, soccer practice, her friends, or a million other things. She was barely ever even home these days.

"Call the number on the card." Mirage instructed with a smile. "The supers aren't gone;  _you're_ still here. You can still do great things. Or…you can listen to police scanners."

"How does she know we listen to the police scanner?" Emma's eyes went wide. "How much surveillance do you think she's done? Do you think they know who we really are? Ohmigod, my parents are going to kill me—"

"Emma, relax." Peter squeezed her arm. She looked like she was going to hyperventilate. "If they knew who we were, she'd have said our names. She probably guessed about the police scanner. How else do people find crimes in progress?"

"—twenty-four hours to respond," Mirage finished with a smirk, "Think about it."

"Wait, who are we supposed to call?" Peter questioned, but the woman had disappeared. A thin white business card ejected from the robot, and Emma picked it up. The bot beeped again.

"This message will self-destruct."

"Get back!" Peter grabbed Emma and webslung them back across to the other rooftop. The bot imploded within seconds.

"Let's call her." Emma turned to him almost immediately.

"What, now?"

"Why not now?"

"Because we shouldn't do things creepy blonde strangers tell us to?"

"You just don't like it because you were wrong about it being a bomb."

"I'm calling spidey-sense on this one, okay? It feels  _weird,_ Em." Peter shook his head. "Like if they've been watching us, why do they think you're the Black Widow? I'll admit you've got the red hair, and you're kind of tall so you could maybe pass, but it's still weird that they'd just  _decide_ that's who you are. I mean, I'm new, why wouldn't you be?"

"One way to find out." Emma waved the card at him. "Look, you're the one always saying we could be better. That we have more to give, more to do. This is the kind of stuff superheroes do; they go on missions, take out killer robots, save the world!"

"An island," Peter corrected though, damn her, he was considering it.

"Is a step up from house fires," Emma insisted, "Come on, Pete. You know we can do it."

Peter shifted uneasily. This  _was_ a step closer to pretty much everything he'd ever dreamed, but…he couldn't shake the feeling there was something wrong with this, something…strange. On the other hand, he knew Emma far too well—she took to challenges like a fish to water, and was going to do this with or without him—and no way was he letting his superpower-less sister fight a killer robot without backup. He pulled out his cell and tossed it to her.

"Alright."

"Yes!" Emma shot forward, hugged him. "Thanks, Pete."

"Yeah, yeah." He shrugged her off. "Just call the creepy Mirage lady and let's get this over with."

Emma dialed excitedly, and it only rang once before someone answered. Peter pressed his ear to the phone.

"Hello?"

"This is—this is Widow," Emma covered quickly, using the name they'd tied her to, "And Spider-Man. We're in."

* * *

"Do you still miss it?" Steve glanced over at Tony. "Sometimes?"

Tony gave a little half-shrug, eyes still on the road. He knew what Steve was talking about, he always did, but he tapped the steering wheel absently for a moment before speaking.

"I think we always will. I think there's a reason our suits are locked away instead of thrown out, a reason Rhodey insists I do maintenance on his every few years, a reason we all still spar. I think part of us is always going to wait on that next call. It's who we are. But so is this." Tony nodded his head in the vague direction of their house as they turned the corner. "I wouldn't trade one for the other. Peter's got you thinking about it though, huh?"

"Yeah." Steve blew out an unhappy sigh.

"He's _our_  kid, screw genetics." Tony shook his head with a snort. "Of course he's all over the superhero stuff."

"I just thought he'd outgrown it already."

"Give it a year." Tony took his hand across the divider, shooting him a grin. "And then pray that his next phase isn't 'punk', because if he gets a tattoo I will personally laser it off his grounded ass."

"I'll hold him down myself," Steve agreed with a smile, then, "It was eerie seeing you on TV. As Iron Man, I mean. It's been a while."

"No kidding. God, that fucking lawsuit. I should've just let him—" Tony's hand went tight in his, and Steve cut him off.

"Don't go down that road." Steve shot him a glance. "You shouldn't have, and you didn't. You did the right thing."

"Yeah," Tony muttered.

"If it hadn't been your case that opened the floodgates, it would've been one about Clint's trick arrows endangering civilians, or how Thor was an illegal immigrant, or some other ridiculous triviality. The public wanted us to step down, and they used you. That's all."

It was a sore spot for Tony; had been for a long time. He felt that it was his fault the age of superheroes had come to a close, and nothing would convince him otherwise, not that Steve ever intended to stop trying. Peter's obsession with superheroes just meant they'd had more reminders of their past lately than was probably good for either of them.

"Yeah." Tony nodded, jaw set. "Just bad memories."

"I know." Steve ran a thumb over Tony's knuckles. They pulled into the driveway, and once Tony put the car in park Steve leaned across to give him a kiss. "Like you said. He'll grow out of it."

Tony just sighed and exited the car. Peter was asleep when they went up to check on him, though he woke up enough to crack an eye open and give them a baleful look as they kissed him goodnight. If there was a muttered complaint about how 'obnoxious' they were, Steve chose to ignore it.

Once upon a time, he'd thought patience meant waiting out a war for a dance. He'd thought it meant not shooting Clint when he started an international incident of unprecedented scale over a drunken game of darts with a supervillain. He'd thought it meant staying by Tony's side through a particularly nasty drinking relapse.

He didn't know a damn thing about patience until he had a teenager.

Steve still remembered so clearly how his six year old son had looked in his husband's arms, utterly exhausted, clutching his Daddy for support, sucking his thumb though he'd broken the habit a year ago, and stubbornly staying awake because Papa wouldn't be home until late and he refused to sleep without getting his goodnight kiss. It was hard to reconcile that image of his son with the one who gave him a dirty, betrayed look if he so much as hugged him in front of his friends.

Peter had always been such an even-keeled child. He'd had his tantrums and his phases like every kid, but on the whole he'd been so, so easy. As a toddler, he'd devoured everything put in front of him, went down for naps without fuss nine times out of ten, and generally listened when they told him no. As he got older, he excelled in school, was polite to adults, kind to his siblings, made the right kinds of friends, and never once came home drunk or high or all the other things the parenting books had told them to be prepared for. Peter was and always had been, by all definitions, a fantastic kid—until a few months ago when the hormones had settled in, at which point Steve's sweet baby boy had suddenly turned into a sullen, moody teenager that felt he had the single most boring life of anyone in the history of the world. He had no problems letting everyone know exactly how stupid and lame he found his parents for choosing it, either.

Patience was not asking his son how "boring" it was that his dad revolutionized the future of green energy in a cave with a box of scraps, build a suit of armor that was still decades ahead of the curve, and became a superhero, a  _legend,_ through sheer intelligence and courage. How "boring" it was that his papa survived seventy years encased in ice, remained even now a master of hand-to-hand combat and strategy, and once lead a team of the world's mightiest superheroes against the greatest threat the Earth ever faced. How "boring" it was that his family was made up of Norse gods and Hulks and spies and soldiers, all of whom were masters at what they did and used their skills to defend the public from everything from aliens to zombies.

Boring was the last word Steve would ever use to describe himself or his family. Even if they hadn't done those things, even if what Peter knew was all there was to them, it stung. If anything, the contempt stung worse that way—they'd worked so hard to carve out something meaningful for themselves in the aftermath of the SRP, and Peter was so utterly disdainful of it all.

"Hey." Tony rolled on his side a bit, nudging an elbow against Steve's stomach. They were lying on the couch, Tony sprawled across his lap lazily, Steve's fingers in his hair. "You haven't complained about the movie in more than half an hour. You aren't still brooding, are you?"

"Thinking," Steve corrected.

"Right. Stop that." Tony reached up to take the hand Steve had in his hair and pull it down, press a kiss to his palm. "Peter's seventeen, babe. He's gonna be rude sometimes."

"It feels like an awful lot more than sometimes," Steve admitted with a sigh.

"Teenagers are supposed to give their parents hell." Tony chuckled. "And when they grow old and get married and have teenagers of their own, we're supposed to laugh our asses off and offer no help whatsoever. It's the natural order of things."

"Do you think I would've been like this? If my mother had still been around, would I have been this rude to her?"

"Sure you would've." Tony shrugged. When Steve shot him a hurt look, Tony rolled his eyes. "Teenagers are hormone-crazed little shitheads, okay? Captain America included. You would've been rude and she would've forgiven you and you would've grown up and matured into the perfect specimen of gentlemanliness you are today and she, like me and everyone else who's ever met you, would adore you." Tony leaned up enough to give him a quick, chaste kiss. "Natural order, honey. What's  _un_ natural, however, is how spectacularly awful the special effects are in this. They could've done a better job in the forties."

Steve focused on the screen for a moment, then,

"Not the forties. Fifties, maybe."

"Right?" Tony groaned. "Has the director never heard of CGI?"

The rest of the movie passed in an amusingly awful blur of bad special effects and swapped complaints, until Tony fell asleep in Steve's lap; unsurprising, considering he did it just about every movie night these days. Steve gave him a gentle shake when the movie ended, and Tony startled.

"I'm awake." He shot up, blinking rapidly. "Totally awake."

"Sure you are." Steve smiled. "Come on. Bed."

"Ugh." Tony laid back down, throwing an arm over his face dramatically. "Moving."

"If you sleep on the couch again, your back will hurt for a week," Steve warned.

"Gonna make it worth my while?" Tony teased, slinging his arm around Steve's neck.

He tugged him into a kiss, and Steve shifted out from under him. He wiggled over enough to throw a leg over Tony's waist, get a better angle. They stayed there a little while, until the kisses went from lazy to fervent, and Steve started to pull back, lead them off to bed. Tony just hooked a leg around him.

"We're not having sex in the living room." Steve rolled his eyes. "Peter's one hallway away."

"Who said anything about sex? It's late, I'm tired, the couch is comfy."

"The night is young," Steve murmured, leaning in close to nip at Tony's ear in the way that always made him squirm, "And the bed is bigger."

"You drive a hard bargain." Tony kissed him again, looping both arms around his neck. "Carry me?"

"Tony." Steve laughed. "Really?"

"C'mon, Cap." Tony fluttered his eyelashes in the over-the-top way he always did when he wanted something ridiculous and knew Steve would give it to him anyway. "Be my hero."

"Whatever you say, 'princess'." Steve rolled his eyes fondly. He gave a small, huffed sigh of faux protest before sliding off the couch and scooping Tony up in his arms. "Better, dear?"

"Much."

Tony kissed him again, a pleased smile on his lips. He always did love being manhandled. They got about halfway to their room before Steve nearly bumped into Peter; he was stumbling towards the bathroom, and made a scoffed, irritated noise when he saw them.

"You have a room. Try using it sometime."

"We also have a house, buddy." Tony fixed Peter with a look. "That we let you live in rent-free. Let's take the snark down a notch."

"Why is he carrying you?" Peter ignored the reprimand to make a face at them.

"I'm tired and he's nice," Tony told him, "What's with the face?"

Peter gave a noncommittal grunt, continuing into the bathroom with a muttered, "You guys are so weird."

"Hey, your father asked you a—" Steve started to call after him, but Tony just patted his arm.

"Forget it. Let him go."

"But he—"

"And he'll just do it again."

Steve gave a frustrated sigh. "And exactly how much are we supposed to let him get away with?"

"I don't know." Tony sighed as well. "But I'll tell you one thing, I'm saving my battles for when his mood gets worse."

"You think—"

"He'll never out-teenage me, I did it without parents and with enough anger and inheritance to set the world on fire, but let's just say if he's got any of those same tendencies, it's going to get worse before it gets better."

"That's not encouraging." Steve winced.

"I think I turned out alright." Tony gave an indignant huff.

"I think." Steve kissed him chastely. "That you turned out perfect, honey."

"Flatterer."

"Oh my god, why are you guys still here? What the fuck," Peter complained flatly, side-stepping them as he exited the bathroom.

"Language, young man," Steve warned sternly.

"Whatever," Peter snorted, disappearing back into his room and shutting the door loudly.

"Hormones." Tony reminded him quickly, before Steve could call after Peter to get his moody butt back out here and answer him with a little respect.

"Are we sure he hasn't been replaced by a Skrull?" Steve muttered.

"You wish our son was a Skrull?" Tony snorted.

"At least if he was a Skrull I'd get to beat something up," he mumbled petulantly.

Tony laughed loudly, though he stifled it quickly for Peter's sake.

"You're too adorable for your own good." Tony smiled up at him fondly. "Now take me to bed already so I can give my hero his reward, hm?"


	4. Chapter 4

The jet picked them up in an empty field by some abandoned train tracks.

It was an hour and a half from their houses, but Emma said they couldn't be too careful with their identities, especially with the government. So they'd asked to be picked up there, and in the morning, Peter hacked into the school's server—pathetically easy, he could've done it in his sleep—and made sure their attendance records marked them as present so the school didn't call their parents. Then they ditched, suited up, and headed out to the rendezvous point.

They'd been in the air maybe fifteen minutes now, after they'd been escorted to the back of the plane by sunglass-wearing men in suits and into some sort of conference-looking room. He assumed they were waiting on Mirage, though he supposed anyone could walk through the door.

Emma, impatient as ever, bounced in her seat. She'd been excited all morning, unable to stop moving for more than ten seconds at any given moment. She wouldn't know fear if it bit her in the ass, and in spite of being completely powerless, she was jazzed to fight a killer robot. Which, yeah, okay, Peter could admit he kind of was too, though he certainly wasn't very jazzed about her coming along. He'd have to watch her like a hawk—Natasha looked like the scary one to most people, but Bruce was the one Peter was worried about. Emma was his princess; if he found out Peter let her take on a killer robot, they'd never find his body.

"The Omnidroid 9000 is a top-secret prototype battle robot," Mirage said in greeting as the doors slid open.

She waved a hand as she walked forward, and a screen came down over the table. It displayed holographic blueprints not unlike the ones in his dad's shop; they looked thicker, less precise, but still. Ahead of most of the world.

"It's artificial intelligence enables it to solve any problem it's confronted with, and, unfortunately…"

"Let me guess." Emma smirked. "It got smart enough to wonder why it had to take orders."

"We lost control," Mirage admitted, "And now it's loose in the jungle, threatening our facility. We've had to evacuate all personnel from the island for their own safety."

"How are we going in?" Peter leaned in, examining the blueprints.

"The Omnidroid's defenses necessitate an airdrop from around 5000 feet. It's cloaking devices make it difficult to track, although we're pretty sure it's on the southern half of the island. And, one more thing…obviously it represents a significant investment—"

"You want us to shut it down without completely destroying it," Peter realized, and he reached out a hand to open up a part of the blueprints that looked blocked.

"Yes." Mirage shut the hologram down with a flick of her wrist and a smile. "You are  _super_ heroes, aren't you? Let's get you strapped into your parachutes, you drop in five."

Peter's spideysenses were tingling. He exchanged a glance with Emma, but she was already hopping out of her seat to follow in excitement, completely unaware of how totally sketchy this Mirage woman was. Great. Peter thought back to what he'd seen of the blueprints before she'd shut him down, if he'd seen any weak spots, anything they could use, but nothing sprang to mind. He had some time to think it over, at least—once they'd dropped, he'd thought they'd have to spring right into fighting stance and kick some robot butt. Instead, there was nothing to be seen but jungle. It was dense and muggy, the plant life large, thick, and over-grown; five hours later, they'd still seen no signs of anything but plants, dirt, and bugs.

"Next time mysterious strangers try and recruit us for their super secret boy band, how about we say no?" Peter complained.

"Oh, right, blame it on me." Emma threw up her hands. "I'm not the one who got us noticed in the first place, 'Spidey'."

"Well, I'm not the one who let a mysterious robot scan my face."

"No, but you  _are_ the one always going on about how we're made for better things. Seems to me like defeating a killer robot is a step in the right direction, don't you think?"

"If we can find the damn thing," Peter grumbled, "And if you can manage not to die."

"Ex _cuse_ you?" Emma rounded on him, "I've saved your life more times than you've saved mine by a longshot!"

"I have  _spider-powers—"_

"Yeah, and it's made you a whiner and a braggart, not a hero." Emma scowled. "Shut up or put up, Pete."

"What the hell is that supposed to m—?"

Emma tackled him, and the elbow slamming into his chest knocked the rest of the sentence from his lungs. Before he could even think to demand what that was about, or possibly just get into a wrestling match with her, a large, metallic claw smashed down where he'd been standing.

"How's that spidey-sense working out for you, jackass?" Emma grunted, then grabbed him by the front of his sweatshirt and dragged him along.

He darted after her quickly, sparing a quick glance over his shoulder. The omnidroid looked exactly like it'd been pictured in the blueprints, a large metal ball with four extendable arms and claws at the end. He remembered it could pop up a "head" of sorts from either end, so he used that to his advantage. He shot web at the top, and when it predictably ducked and went to open the head underneath, Peter already had a second shot ready and flying. With it's sensor blocked, it quickly started bumping into trees. It managed to roll in their direction though, blockading them back towards the edge of the—

"Are you kidding me? Why did you run in the direction of a  _cliff?"_ Peter snapped at Emma.

"I was following you!"

"You were ahead of me!"

" _You_ were ahead of  _me!"_

The robot must've had some kind of auditory sensor as well, because before either them knew what was happening it was rolling right at them.

"Fuck," Peter swore, grabbed Emma around the waist, and leapt.

She white-knuckle clung to him as he slid down the side of the thankfully somewhat slanted cliff face, the omnidroid wasting no time in following after. Peter rolled them to the side, out of the way just as the bot shot past them. They landed in a pile of rubble, dusty and bruised but okay. The bot just flipped over to land on it's feet—claws?—and hurl rocks at them. They ducked and weaved, sliding behind a rock wall for some cover. They were close to the edge of a crater, but they had a couple feet of solid ground and they needed the cover. Peter slung some web at a rock to swing it around, launch it up and over in the direction of the bot, who finished clawing the web off it's sensor in time to catch and smash the rock in it's other claw.

"Who exactly thought this was a good idea again?" Peter grunted.

"Whiner and a braggart!" Emma just shot back waspishly, opening a pocket of her belt to pull out—a Twix bar?

"Are fucking kidding me, we're about to die and you're  _hungr—"_

"Shut up, wrong pocket!" Emma snapped, tossing away the candy and opening a different pocket. This time she revealed a sleek, metallic black ball roughly the size of a golf ball. "Cover your ears and duck."

She squeezed it hard then tossed it towards the robot, clapping her hands over her ears immediately and curling up into a ball behind the protective rock face; Peter followed suit. The following explosion was loud and had a vague ringing that sounded nearly supersonic. Peter stayed down until Emma nodded, then they rose up in time for the bot, unaffected and pissed, to throw a rock at them.

Peter shoved Emma down and meant to go down with her, but didn't have enough time; the rock clipped him in the shoulder and he was thrown back. He landed on the edge but rolled off, and though he tried shoot web at the edge, hauling himself back up, his shooter jammed and he couldn't manage it. He bounced off the slope a couple times; he tried to grab the walls, but couldn't manage to get a hold of anything solid enough to stick to. He slammed into the ground, hard—two ribs at least, and possibly a broken nose, fucking hell—the bot only seconds behind. Peter managed to haul himself up, roll away before the a claw could slam down on his head, and caught sight of his new surroundings:  _lava._

Peter gave a loud groan that most definitely did not end in a whimper. Superheroes didn't get scared, he reminded himself.  _Whiner and a braggart!_ Emma's voice rang in his head. If Captain America was thrown into a volcano, he wouldn't get scared. He wouldn't whine about it. He'd get up as many times as he had to no matter how much it hurt or how hard it was and kick robotic ass, that's what he'd do. The bot reached for him again and Peter threw himself out of the way, trying his shooters again; nothing. Goddamn it. He ducked and rolled away from another claw grab, taking apart a shooter as he did. It looked like it was just clogged with too much rubble, so he cleared one and fired off a test shot at the robot's sensor. A miss, but at least it'd shot, so he cleared the other while putting his reflexes to the test dodging the robot. Without the practice of these past few weeks with Emma, he wouldn't have lasted a second, but as it was he managed to hold on until he had the other shooter cleared.

He lured the bot to the lava's edge, close enough he could feel the heat soaking into his skin, and let the bot lunge at him. At the very last possible second, Peter ducked, shot web at the underside of the bot and used it to slide himself between the bots legs and over the other side. The bot, too heavy to stop, kept lunging full tilt into the lava. It disappeared beneath the surface with a gurgling sort of noise, and Peter whooped loudly.

"Fuck yeah!"

"Ohmigod." Emma slammed into his back, hugging him from behind and burying her face in the back of his shoulder. "Oh my god, you fucking idiot, why would you jump into a volcano, you complete fucking idiot—"

"Can we stop crushing my already fragile ribs? That would be a nice thing we could do—"

"Stop being a sarcastic shit for two seconds." Emma demanded, though she relaxed her grip.

"Yeah." Peter gave a lop-sided grin. "I totally had you scared. Admit it."

"Admit what? That you're an idiot?" Emma released him to smack a hand across the back of his head.

"Ow!"

"Don't scare me like that," Emma just told him.

"I was thrown off a cliff, jeez, you say it like it's my fa— _watch out!"_ Peter cut himself off as the bot rose up from behind Emma, red-hot and covered in lava and rubble.

They ducked out of the way as it rumbled up, and Peter grabbed Emma by the waist; they needed to get out of there, and fast. The thing was immune to bombs, lava…what in the hell else could they even do? Why had Mirage sent them here, knowing nothing they could do would be effective? He settled for an escape plan, shooting web up towards the lip of the cliff and hauled them up.

"Come on, we have to go." Peter tugged her along once they were on solid ground. "I don't think it can jump this high, but I'm sure it can climb. We'll regroup, make a plan."

"Peter, it's  _lava-resistant."_ Emma clenched her fists as they took off back into the jungle. "And the bomb I threw was a prototype designed by your dad; if Starktech couldn't even take that thing out, I'm not sure what other options we have. Let's just call Mirage and—"

"No, Mirage should be our last resort. Absolute last."

"Why?"

"Emma." She was easily as smart as he was, she had to be thinking it. "No way she looked at us and thought we could handle this. And if she knew we couldn't handle it…"

"She wants to get us killed." Emma pursed her lips.

"Probably," Peter admitted.

"Why us?"

"A warning to other supers?" Peter shrugged. "I don't know. We could go find the abandoned facility she was talking about, they might've left something behind that would give us a clue."

"Best plan we've got, I guess." Emma sighed. "Did you get a better look at the map than I did? I was busy focusing on the robot design. I don't even know where we are now, much less where the facility is."

"I've got a vague idea." Peter glanced at their surroundings. If the volcano was behind them, the facility should be to the northwest… "This w—"

_Shoot to thrill / play to kill! Too many women / with too many pills!_

"Shit." Peter pulled his phone out of the zippered pocket he'd stored it in. He didn't have to look at the caller id; his dad programmed all their phones so that was his ringtone. He checked the time, and had his suspicions confirmed; they'd been out here far longer than he'd thought. "It's been hours since school got out."

"Answer it, or they'll just get even more suspicious. Say you're at friend's, and I'm with you."

"What if he already checked the records? I covered my tracks, but if _he's_  looking, he'll find it—"

"One way to find out." Emma snatched his phone, opened it, pressed it to his ear.

"Hi, Dad," Peter squeaked.

"Where are you? You're supposed to be home by six for dinner, we've been waiting half an hour for you."

"A friend's? Yeah, a friend's, we're, y'know, studying. Working hard. With Emma."

"You and Emma aren't in any of the same classes, what are you stu—" There was a loud, echoing boom from worryingly nearby. "Was that an  _explosion?"_

"Explosion? What explosion?" Peter heard Pops call in the background.

"There was no explosion, you're hearing things—" Peter tried to assure them.

"I know what an explosion sounds like, damn it, where are you?" Dad just demanded.

"I'm fine, we're fine, there was no explosi—"

Which was, of course, when the bot burst through the trees and slammed a claw into Peter's stomach. He lost his grip on the phone as he went flying, and it landed somewhere off in the foliage. Peter immediately decided to abandon it in favor of living, and instead hauled himself up, grabbing Emma and dragging her after him into the jungle.

* * *

"Peter?" Tony shouted into the phone, " _Peter!"_

"Tony, what's going—"

"There was an explosion then crashing and I'm 84.6% sure I heard a robot, it sounded like a robot, the mechanics of it anyway, I couldn't hear that well, and Peter said something about 'follow me' so I'm thinking Emma's there too, we have to trace the call—" Tony was already off down the hall towards the stairs that led to his workshop, Steve less than two steps behind him.

"An explosion? Are you—"

"Of course I'm sure, I know what a goddamn explosion sounds like!"

It was every nightmare they'd ever had turned real; every worry that their past would come back to haunt them, every fear that they might put the children they loved more than anything in danger, finally coming true. Peter and Emma had been kidnapped, were being hunted by some robot, and Tony had no idea why Peter would lie about that but it didn't matter, all that mattered was the cold fear clutching his heart, the panicked shortness of his breath. Everything he felt was mimicked on Steve's face.

"I know, Tony, I believe you, just trace the call and—"

"JARVIS," Tony demanded, clapping his hands, "Wake up. Play the call on speaker for Steve and give me the location of Peter's cell phone post-haste."

"Of course, sir."

Steve listened to the brief call with increasing worry, and when it finished, JARVIS relayed the coordinates.

"What the fuck is he doing in the middle of the goddamn ocean?" Tony swore, "JARVIS, call ahead, have the jet ready and waiting at La Guardia—"

"Take the suit," Steve insisted, "You heard that call, they're being—chased, or attacked, or who knows what, screw the identity, go get him  _now_ —"

"I am," Tony assured, typing in a complicated sequence on his keyboard at blinding speed. The circular space in the middle of the room began to open up. "The jet's for you. And Bruce and Tasha, Emma's there too—tell them what's going on, hell, tell everyone, get reinforcements and meet me there as soon as you—"

"—can, I will, I love you, call me when you've got eyes on him." Steve took two quick steps forward, kissed him, then was back off up the stairs.

The Iron Man suit rose in all it's glory as the tunnel leading outside opened wide, but Tony didn't have time for admiration. He called it to him and barely let it finish assembling before he took off into the sky at top speed, gunning the thrusters and resisting the urge to call Peter again. He knew the phone had been dropped, knew he'd get voicemail, knew it would only worry him more to hear it. He called anyway.

"Hey, it's Peter. You know what to do."

_Beep._

"We're coming to get you, Peter. I promise, we'll be there soon as we can—I touch down in an hour, your father's no more than three hours behind me—in the meantime Peter, please, just stay safe. Find a place to hide and stay there. Supervillains don't listen, they don't care that you're kids, they'll—they'll hurt you. You need to find a hiding spot and  _stay there,_ okay? I love you, Peter, I love you so much, your father and I are coming, and everything will be okay, I promise. Just stay safe, baby boy."

It was without question the longest hour of Tony's life.

He was flying so fast he damn near overshot the island, but he looped back and landed; the island was huge, but he had a starting place: Peter's phone. He found it fairly quickly with JARVIS' assistance, and the claw marks he saw nearby filled his heart with an icy dread and vicious fury. The tracks were easy to follow, and after a half hour of flying, he began to hear noise.

* * *

They weren't doing so well.

Peter's ribs were likely broken, along with his nose, and he was bruised probably just about everywhere. Emma was ridiculous about never letting people know when she was in pain, but from what Peter could tell she didn't seem to be doing much better than him, and she'd definitely been limping the last half mile or so. They'd been running for at least an hour, but every time they thought they lost the bot it showed up again to throw them around some more. Emma's stash of stolen Starktech had almost run out and done minimal damage at best in the first place, and since it was a learning robot, Peter was running out of tricks to distract it with. They were as safe as they could be for the moment, crouched up on a high ledge and hidden behind a bulky rock, but the bot was below, smashing up trees in search of them.

Then, Peter started hallucinating.

In his mind, he imagined Iron Man roaring through the sky like an avenging angel in red and gold, crashing into the robot with vicious force. Iron Man sent the bot flying but went after it immediately, pounding into it relentlessly. The bot was only down a moment before snatching Iron Man off it and hurtling him into a wall; Iron Man was up again in a flash, but the bot managed to snatch him out of the air, slam him down. The bot's claws began to spin like helicopter blades, and it inched a claw down towards Iron Man's neck. Was he about to hallucinate Iron Man getting his head sliced off? Why the hell would he imagine  _that?_

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!"

The blades slowed to a stop. Iron Man struggled valiantly, but didn't have the leverage to get up. Someone new swooped in, no hero Peter had ever seen or heard of. He was in black and white, with a long cape, rocket boots, and a large 'S' splashed across the front of his uniform. Now he was hallucinating brand new heroes?

"Who's that?" Emma whispered to him, and holy shit, this was real.

"I don't know," Peter whispered back, "I've never seen anything about this one."

"What an eager beaver you are!" The black and white hero landed casually on top of the bot's head, pressing a button on his glove to make it stop trying to take Iron Man's head off, and oh, crap, that was a villain.

"Oh my god," Peter murmured, "Are we really going to get to see Iron Man take this guy out? I can't believe this is actually happening, I had a dream like this once, who am I kidding, I've had a million dreams like this, oh my god—"

"Stop fangirling and listen." Emma elbowed him.

"—this was just supposed to take out some teenagers, really, I wasn't planning on hosting you so soon, this is almost embarrassing—"

"What did you do to them?" Iron Man spat furiously, and whoa, Iron Man knew who they were? Had apparently even come to rescue them? This was literally the coolest moment of Peter's life and he was possibly bleeding to death and in hiding, how was that even possible—

"Don't worry about that, I'll find them later." The villain waved a hand. "I can't believe you're actually here! Man, I thought I'd need at least another year's worth of upgrades, but maybe I was just overshooting. Hard not to! Every villain you ever faced went down because they underestimated that ingenuity of yours. I would know, after all…I  _am_ your biggest fan."

There was a long moment of silence.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me."

"You  _do_ remember me!"

"This is all because I didn't want some stupid kid sidekick? Damn it, Jacob, this isn't a ga—"

"That. Is not. My name!" The villain pressed a button, and the bot threw Iron Man into the ground so hard he left an indent. "And it's not Iron Boy, either. That ship has sailed."

Iron Man hoisted himself up, but refrained from attacking again while the much larger bot still loomed over him. Instead, he gave a mechanical-sounding, rueful sort of snort. "You don't even know what you've done, how much you've pissed me off. How thoroughly I'm going to enjoy beating you into the ground."

"Sounds a little violent, for you."

"You went after—after  _children._ Ifyou think I have any hesitations about  _destroying_ you, think again," Iron Man snarled.

"I'm not a child," Peter grumbled. "Why does Iron Man think I'm a child? I'm seventeen, I'm almost an adult—"

"Peter, no one cares about your bruised ego," Emma hissed, "I can't hear."

"They're old enough to play superhero." The villain sneered.

"Play!" Iron Man repeated forcefully. "Not be! And what the hell kind of game are you playing that justifies setting killer robots on powerless kids—"

"Oh, but they're not powerless, are they?" the villain demanded, "They're supers! Egotistical, stuck-up, unreliable supers—"

"They have…powers?" Iron Man was clearly shocked.

If he didn't know they had powers, why was he even here? If he didn't know they were supers, how  _did_ he know them?

"Doy." The villain rolled his eyes. "They're young but they're corrupt; heroes can't be counted on. No one can be. Respect is what matters, and respect can be earned through force; there are whole countries who want to force some respect, who're willing to pay through the nose to get it. How do you think I got rich enough to afford all this? I designed weapons, filled the slot your precious owners opened up after your pathetic former CEO got himself kidnapped and called everything off. Now I've got a new weapon, one only  _I_ can defeat, I, Syndrome, your nemesi—"

Iron Man fired off a repulsor, catching the villain, apparently Syndrome, by surprise; he deflected it with some sort of blue shield though, and used his other glove to catch Iron Man in a similar blue shield. Iron Man was frozen in place, and Syndrome laughed.

"You sly dog! You caught me monologuing!" Syndrome swung Iron Man around, eventually throwing him back into the wall. "Cool, huh? Zero point energy. Am I good enough for you now? Huh?  _Huh?_ "

Syndrome picked Iron Man back up with the zero point energy and swung him around, slamming him into every obstacle he could.

"We have to help—" Peter started, but Emma was already digging through her pockets again.

"You have better aim than I do," Emma grudgingly admitted, passing him one of the little bombs from earlier, "Squeeze it to set it off."

Peter took careful aim and squeezed hard before launching it at Syndrome, who was still swinging Iron Man around like a rag doll. It exploded too early, not close enough to do any real damage, but it distracted him enough that he released the button on his glove that made the zero point energy thing work. Iron Man, at the height of a throw, was sent soaring off into the distance.

"Brilliant," Syndrome grumbled. He glanced around, clearly aware he was being watched, then came to a decision. "I'll deal with you brats later."

He fired up his rocket boots and took off towards in the direction Iron Man had disappeared. Peter made to go after them, but Emma grabbed his arm firmly. He tried to shake her off, but she had a damn strong grip.

"Peter, we're outmatched," Emma insisted, "We gave Iron Man a headstart, but that's all we can do."

"We should at least  _try—"_

"Try to what? Get in the middle of killer robots and Syndrome and Iron Man? We'd be a distraction at best, collateral roadkill at worst. Iron Man's a legend, okay? Come on, you had the guy on your bedsheets for like three years—"

"A few months, and it was years ago—!"

"My point is that he got caught off guard earlier, but if anyone can handle it an Avenger can, right?"

"Yeah," Peter admitted.

"This isn't about helping anymore, it's about seeing him in action, and I get it, I do, but I'm…" Emma wasn't a crier, not by a longshot, but she looked terrifyingly close. "We've been trekking around for hours, Peter. I'm not really sure I can keep running around on this damn ankle much longer, y'know?"

"You're right." Peter nodded quickly, looping his arm through hers to help her up. He'd forgotten she'd injured her ankle. "I'm sorry, Emma."

"It's whatever." Emma rubbed her eyes.

"Sure," Peter agreed easily, feeling guilty he hadn't noticed before.

"We'll be fine, it'll be fine," she was quick to add, "I mean, your dad can track your cell phone, I'm sure he can, and after a phone call like that, our parents and probably half the police force of New York are going to be on a jet here."

"You think they'll stop at half?" Peter shot her a grin.

"My mom'll probably bring in all of SHIELD, too." Emma chuckled.

"You know we're going to be grounded for the rest of our natural lives, right?" Peter winced. "And that's assuming your dad even lets me live after finding out I got you involved in all this."

"You know what I love about you, Pete?" Emma grinned, slinging an arm around him. "Your optimism."


	5. Chapter 5

Tony hit the water hard. He tried to get the repulsors to start, but got only sputtering in protest. That zero point energy thing had totally fried them. They'd come back online, he was sure, but not for at least another five minutes. He got his head above water to take a glance around, and oh, awesome, a waterfall coming up fast, wasn't that just his perfect life.

"Sir, Syndrome is approaching overhead," JARVIS warned.

"Fucking hell." Tony groaned pre-emptively. "This is gonna hurt, isn't it?"

"Your plans all too often do." JARVIS sighed, but didn't attempt to dissuade him, which was as good as approval in snobby-English-AI-ese.

Tony threw all his energy forward, swimming off the edge before Syndrome could catch up with him. It was an insanely long plummet, and the resulting crash severely damaged his filtration systems. Water began leaking in, and Tony didn't even have a moment to register  _that_ panic before he caught sight of a blinking object, and a whole other panic took precedence.

"Sir, that's a—"

"Yep!"

Tony was already backpedalling as fast as he could, swimming away and ducking off into an underwater cavern. The bomb blast didn't catch him, but the following current did, and it carried him the rest of the way through the channel. He surfaced in an empty, underground cave, and ripped his helmet off to cough up the ten gallons of water he'd just swallowed. When he lifted his head, he regretted it.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Tony threw himself backwards, away from the dusty skeleton that had been less than an inch from his nose.

It was still wearing a uniform, and one all too familiar—blue and yellow, with a strip of metal strapped across the eye sockets. He remembered an old, bad, and now rather tasteless joke he'd once told Steve after their first meeting with the X-Men. What's blue and yellow and a total dick? The answer was the dead guy sitting across from him now: Scott Summers, aka Cyclops.

Steve hadn't laughed. Tony sure wasn't now.

He crawled closer to the skeleton, followed his rather intense gaze into the distance to see that he'd written something on the opposite wall with his vision.

"Kronos?" Tony repeated.

Before he could consider possible meanings, a slim, silver device came poking around—a sweeper bot, had to be. Syndrome wanted to see if he was alive. Options, options, optio—oh, that was so disrespectful and so likely to work. Tony hauled himself over to Summers' bones, grabbed his helmet, yanked it on, and pulled the bones in front of him. Between the metal of the suit and the dead matter of the bones, the bot ought to fall for it.

It got very close, maybe an inch or so from Scott's visor, and hovered. It was maybe a minute before it beeped, twice, in what Tony could only hope was a negative fashion. Then it flew back up, presumably to tell Syndrome he was dead; good. Tony could work with dead. He'd still need to wait at least ten minutes before risking going outside, but he'd have to wait for his repulsors to boot up again anyway.

"J, call Steve," Tony instructed. It only rang once.

"Have you seen them, are they—"

"Not yet, but Syndrome—my old fan club president is apparently a villain now—doesn't know where they are. Looks like he's been playing some kind of cat and mouse game with superheroes. I don't know how he got them on the island, kidnapped them or tricked them or what, but he was definitely looking for them when I intercepted. He talked about not having planned on taking me on for a while."

"Wait, your fan club president…that Justin Hammer kid?"

"How in the hell do you remember my fan club president's name?"

"He sent you death threats for years, how do you  _not?"_

"I didn't want to waste the brainspace, look, more importantly—"

"More importantly than the  _supervillain trying to kill our son?"_

"They have superpowers, Steve."

"'They' as in…no."

"Yeah."

A long, nearly endless silence followed as Steve processed that.

"Both of them?"

"Sounded like it."

"Sounded?"

"Syndrome said it, I haven't seen them yet. He could've been wrong, but he didn't know how I knew them, and if he didn't pick them up because they're family…well. Why else would he have?"

"Huh." Steve blew out a sigh, a burst of static over the line. "I suppose that explains the superhero obsession."

"Yeah."

"Honey—"

"I know, I'm working on finding them, but my repulsors need to reboot first—"

"Tony." Steve laughed. "I was going to say be careful."

"I never stopped being Iron Man," Tony reminded him cheekily, "I'm invincible, remember?"

"It's been a long time since I've had to watch you run off headfirst into explosions," Steve admitted ruefully, "Go easy on me and try not to maim yourself too badly, alright? For my sake."

"I'll try and only lose the one leg."

"As long as you come home to me."

"I'll be careful, honey." Tony promised. "Don't worry so much; we're Avengers, what could happen?"

"You know I hate it when you say 'what could happen', it always means something bad is about to happen—"

"Not  _always—"_

"Yes,  _always,_ it happened when we took on Galactus, when I ordered you to hang back and you said 'come on, baby, just trust me, what could happen?' and then he blasted you into the forties—"

"I maintain that meeting past you was the coolest thing ever and completely solidified my undying love for you, have I mentioned my undying love lately—"

"—and when we brought you back your cell structure was in such a state you had to be put into a medical coma for  _three weeks—"_

"Admittedly, that was not a very nice thing to do to you so early in our relationship—"

"—I had wait  _three weeks_ for my boyfriend of less than  _twenty four hours_ to come out of a coma _—"_

"Yes, okay, that was a particularly bad instance in which I used the phrase 'what could happen', but really—"

"—or we could talk about the time you played high-stakes poker with Clint because 'don't worry baby, I'm a genius, what could happen?' and you lost the company—"

"Okay, to be fair, I never actually signed any documents legalizing that—"

"Only because Pepper put you in a sleeper hold."

"You know, she never put me in sleeper holds  _before_ she met Natasha—"

"The  _point_ ," Steve cut him off to emphasize, "Is that it worries me when you start saying 'what could happen'. It means you're getting cocky, and we haven't done this in a while to begin with—"

"Are you calling me rusty?" Tony demanded.

"No, I'm saying we're out of practice."

"So we're rusty."

"In a manner of speaking."

"I can handle it, Steve."

"I know you can. I do. It's just…" Steve blew out a heavy sigh. "It's been a long time. I forgot how damn nerve-wracking it is knowing you're out there without anyone to watch your back."

"That's what the rearview vision installation's for," Tony joked.

"No, that's what I'm for," Steve corrected firmly, "And I'll be there to do it in two hours. Stay safe until then. I can't—not both of you. God, not even one of you. I need you, sweetheart. Please remember that."

"I need you too, honey," Tony softened, "I'll be careful. Love you."

"Love you too."

He hung up, and tried his repulsors again; success.

* * *

"You guys really are too sappy to function." Clint lounged back in his seat, stretching out comfortably. "I hope you know that. Also, you reminded me, you owe me a company. But since I'm the forgiving type, I'll accept a late payout."

"You cried over an open com line when Phil stubbed his toe." Steve snorted. "Yes, we're definitely the sappy ones."

"Okay, fuck you, that is  _not_ what happened—"

"That's precisely what happened." Natasha rolled her eyes.

"But we didn't know it at the time! At the time I thought he was dead!"

"All I said was 'shit'. I've said worse when my coffee's not black enough in the morning," Phil pointed out in amusement.

"Yeah, okay,  _technically—"_

"And then you 'technically' began sobbing?" Steve turned enough in the pilot's seat to arch an eyebrow at him.

"I did not  _sob,_ you asshole, I asked if he was okay and his com went dead and I thought he'd been shot and—look, there was cause for concern, damn it!"

"So you sobbed."

"I sniffled, like,  _once!_ That's not sobbing, I had a damn head cold—"

"If we could focus on our children, that might be a better use of our time," Bruce finally spoke, "What did Tony say about them?"

They were all suited up, and crowded towards the front of the jet; Steve was flying, Natasha was co-piloting, and Clint and Phil were in the seats just behind them. Thor was flying out in front, while Bucky and Rhodey had drawn the short straws and were stuck with child-sitting duty, since Jane was in New Hampshire for a conference, Rowan and Alexander couldn't be left alone, and if the team was flying into enemy territory they'd need Thor's air support. Bucky and Rhodey would surely be bitching about it for the next decade, but it was unavoidable.

Meanwhile, Bruce had cleared out a space in the back of the plane, and had been trying to meditate the whole flight. However, his knee hadn't stopped bouncing and the hard edge to his mouth hadn't left since he'd first heard the words "Emma" and "danger". Understandable, of course, but worrying nonetheless considering Bruce was the by far the best of them at maintain a sense of inner calm in all situations.

"Bruce, Natasha…" Steve began carefully, "Did you ever consider…well, that Emma might—"

"The Hulk doesn't affect my genetic sequencing, Steve," Bruce answered with his eyes still closed, "It's not inheritable."

"We had tests done anyway, obviously," Natasha added, "Nothing."

"Ah." Steve nodded slowly.

"I assume there's a reason you ask." It wasn't a question. Bruce took a deep, meditative sigh as he waited on Steve to explain.

"This is hearsay. I heard it from Tony who heard it from a supervillain, so," Steve prefaced, "Not reliable information, clearly."

"Clearly." Bruce hummed.

"The supervillain—Syndrome, an old fan of Tony's gone off his rocker—thinks the kids have superpowers."

"They'd tell us," Bruce responded immediately, unperturbed.

"They're teenagers," Clint pointed out, "Tough age. Kids like to keep shit to themselves."

"Says the man with none," Natasha came back sharply, "They would tell us if they had superpowers, Clint."

"Maybe not," Steve mused, "Since Tony said it, I've been considering it, and…well, Peter's been obsessed with superheroes lately, and I know I've seen Emma borrowing his comics. I don't know about you, but Tony and I haven't exactly been supportive. We haven't _discouraged_ it, but we certainly haven't been enthusiastic, and I know he's picked up on it. He's said as much. If you've been the same way with Emma and they think we're all SRP supporters, I can't imagine they'd be eager to tell us the truth."

Bruce and Natasha exchanged a glance.

"We may not have been as supportive as we could have been," Bruce admitted.

Steve's phone went off, and he opened it immediately, worried Tony had called back so soon.

"Are you okay?"

"I am not, Steven!" Thor thundered in his ear. Two decades on earth, thousands of years alive, and the man could not grasp that the phone picked up his voice just fine without shouting. Steve held the phone away from his ear. "James has just informed me that they cannot locate my son!"

"What?" Steve nearly dropped the phone in surprise. Neither of the James' were particularly in love with children, but neither of them were irresponsible or negligent enough to  _lose_ one. "Rowan or Alexander?"

"Rowan!"

"Are you sure they've actually  _lost_ him? He's pretty mischievous, he could just be hiding somewhere—"

"Captain—" And God Almighty if that wasn't the best thing he'd heard all day. Not that he'd ever really stopped being a Captain, but he hadn't been called so in nearly two decades. Well, Tony calling him 'Captain of my bed' and various other assortments didn't really count. He hadn't been called so  _genuinely_ in nearly two decades, and damn if it didn't feel good. "—I must return. I will be back to aide you when my son had been found."

"We understand, Thor, we're doing the same thing," Steve decided, "Go. Hurry back."

"I shall, Steven." Steve clicked the phone shut.

"дураков," Natasha muttered, "They lost Rowan?"

"Apparently." Steve sighed. Bad luck always converged at once; this was the part of the superhero gig he definitely remembered.

The rest of the flight was mostly silent and fairly smooth, until roughly an hour or so later, when Steve gave Tony a call to let him know he was a half hour away from landing. If Tony could find him an airstrip that'd be ideal, but Steve wasn't necessarily opposed to radioing it in. If it was a legitimate government lab with one bad scientist, they'd probably be useful. If it wasn't, well, Steve's son had apparently been kidnapped in the morning; he was certainly in the mood to crack some skulls.

As it was, he thought he'd at least try Tony first. The call was brief.

"Hey, I've found something you're really going to want to hear ab—" Tony answered, before a blast of noise interrupted him that could only be classified as an alarm. "Oh, fuck, what the hell was that? Shit, the phone call probably set off the alarms, fuck, fuck, fucking fuck—"

"Tony? Tony, talk to me, where are—"

"Goddamn it these are heavy—listen, Steve, I—" There was a brief whine of repulsors and the sound of the alarm, then the call disconnected.

"Fuck," Steve swore, gripping the wheel tighter. He slammed a hand against it in frustration. " _Damn it._ "

"Tony's been compromised," Phil surmised.

"Yes," Steve seethed.

"Twenty bucks say they tie him up," Clint offered. Phil elbowed him discreetly but viciously; Steve wouldn't have noticed if Clint hadn't started hacking up a lung and clutching his side. "Too soon? Come on, I can't be the only one who notices it's always him who gets tied up like a pornstar."

"Believe me, I am very aware of how often Tony gets tied up." Steve grit his teeth, and that shut Clint up for all of three seconds.

"For the record, I never want to know anything about your sex life, and the concept of it frankly terrifies me."

Phil snorted tellingly. "Bondage doesn't terrify you."

"One of many things I never needed to know about Clint." Bruce sighed.

"Focus," Steve demanded, "I'm going to radio us in. There's supposed to be a military base there we can land at."

"We'll be announcing ourselves to Tony's number one fan," Phil pointed out.

"We don't have any choice, I won't be able to land if they can't tell me where. If the government facility is fake and they ambush us when we land, we'll just have to take them down from the inside. And I don't know about you, but frankly?" Steve grit his teeth. "I wouldn't mind right now. I've been itching for a fight for damn near two decades, and I can't think of anything better to fight for."

There was a long moment of silence, before Clint announced,

"I'm pretty sure we're addicts."

Nobody disagreed.

"Island approach, StarkJet Nine checking in with Island Tower, over," Steve relayed over the jet com. Radio silence. "Island tower, this is StarkJet Nine requesting vectors for the initial descent, over."

Nothing.

* * *

"You, sir,  _truly_ are incredible; the incredible Iron Man is Tony Stark after all. You've just about blown my little fanboy brain, y'know that? Man, I was so right to idolize you."

Tony lifted his head groggily, trying to recall how he'd gotten here. The last thing he remembered was breaking into Syndrome's facility. He'd followed the tunnels to the command room, knocked the guard there out, searched the room for a map of sorts to…right, to find Syndrome's office. It had been oh so reasonably located behind a stream of lava, but Tony'd caught a lackey leaving at just the right time and shot through the opening before it closed. He'd gotten on the computer, then…

Fuck.

Syndrome had files on every superhero Tony knew. Black Widow was misidentified as her daughter, bad filework there—Emma wasn't old enough to have been a superhero back in the day, though she looked enough like her mother Tony could understand the confusion—and Peter was something called a Spider-Man. He remembered flicking through the information on him, reading about sticking to walls and shooting webbing from his wrists and some kind of warning sense, absorbing that a minute before checking on the others. None of their locations were known, so he moved onto a different file, one labeled "Omnidroid 10x".

The mental images were blurry, and his head still hurt like hell, but there'd been something about a rocket, hadn't there? An attack on New York? He couldn't remember the particulars quite yet, still too groggy from getting knocked unconscious. He'd been strung up by some sort of electric weights connected to a larger, circular system. Designed for shock torture. Great.

"It's invincible, spitwad," Tony muttered to Syndrome anyway.

"What?"

" _Invincible,"_ Tony repeated, "Incredible Hulk, Invincible Iron Man. For my supposed fan club president, you really should know tha—ah!"

Syndrome cranked up the dial on a nearby dashboard, sending electricity coursing through him. He shouted and swore; Syndrome let him squirm a minute, then dialed it down.

"You always were known for your mouth. And your damn ingenuity! I  _know_ how smart you are, how creative, and I  _still_ didn't see it coming!" Syndrome grinned now, walking up to him. "I mean, tricking the probe by hiding under the bones of another super? Oh  _man!_ I'm still geeking out about it!"

"Always happy to entertain," Tony grunted.

"But then you had to go and ruin the fun." Syndrome scowled. "Calling for help? The  _invincible_ Iron Man, calling for help? Lame, lame, lame,  _lame!_ Who did you contact, huh?"

"I didn't contact anyone." Tony rolled his eyes.

Apparently not, since Syndrome just gestured for one of his lackeys to juice Tony up. He grit his teeth through the hot, rippling surge of it, and resisted shouting this time.

"If you didn't contact anyone, then why is a StarkIndustries jet requesting to land here?" Syndrome demanded. Tony stayed silent. Syndrome waved a hand at his lackey. "Play the transmission!"

" _Island approach, StarkJet Nine checking in with Island Tower, over. Island tower, this is StarkJet Nine requesting vectors for the initial descent, over."_

"Shit," Tony muttered. Why the hell wasn't Thor just telling them where to land? What was Steve thinking, contacting the island tower?

"So you do know them." Syndrome's lips curled into a smirk. "Is that your pretty husband coming to the rescue? Oh, well…I'll have to send him a little greeting."

"No!" Tony couldn't help a shout, but Syndrome was already flipping the switches.

" _Starkjet Nine transmitting, disengage, repeat, disengage."_

Tony's mind raced; If they had Thor, Steve wouldn't have radioed in his position, wouldn't be asking for the missiles to be disengaged. Where in the fucking hell was Thor? It didn't matter, what mattered was there was no one else onboard that could take out a missile, and there was no way they could outmaneuver those missiles. StarkJets handled like a dream, but considering the quality of this guy's tech and Steve's track record with planes and oceans— _fuck_. Pleading was pointless and hopeless and Tony  _knew_ it wouldn't work,  _knew_ it was just what Syndrome wanted to hear, but he couldn't help himself. Couldn't help the gambit, if only to buy time—

"Anything." Tony scrambled to remember the guy's name, he had to get the goddamn name right, Steve's life was on the fucking line— "Anything you want, Justin, I swear to god. Money, power, respect, I can get it. You want to rule the goddamn world I'll help you take it over and hand it to you on a silver platter, you just have to call off those missiles—"

"It's too late to grovel, Iron Man."

"I'll build you a suit," Tony promised. He caught Syndrome freezing, and ran with it. "Exactly like mine, better than mine, faster, more weapons, less, different, however you want it, you just call those damn things off."

" _Disengage, repeat, disengage!"_ That was the tone Tony didn't want to hear, the bad tone, the one that made his chest tighten in worry and fear and—  _"Starkjet Nine has children on board, I demand you disengage! Repeat, there are children on board, disengage!"_

What?

_What?_

" _Abort!"_

One last, furiously, terrifyingly desperate call; Tony heard it all in Steve's voice. There was no back-up plan. Syndrome leaned in close enough Tony felt spit on his face as the villain spoke.

"How does it feel to know your family will pay the price for your arrogance?" Syndrome sneered. "Your selfishness? All I wanted was your attention, and you couldn't give me the time of day. You wanted to work alone, Iron Man? Well."

There was a long pause as Syndrome turned to his lackey. Then, the words Tony would hear rattling around in nightmares for the rest of his life:

"Target destroyed."

For all it was metaphor, for all it wasn't scientifically possible, Tony was sure his heart had broken. He might've stopped breathing, but he couldn't have been sure. He couldn't have been sure of anything, then. The world was nothing but fog. He was too caught in the throes of the slippery, nasty chaos in his head, torn between a rage more pure and visceral than anything he'd ever felt, and a loss so profoundly excruciating it was crippling; loss won. Tony couldn't muster the energy to lift his gaze from the floor.

"You got your wish," Syndrome snarled.

Rage surged through him like a riptide, taking hold of every muscle in his body and electrifying it, sending him pitching forward against the restraints hard enough to damn near dislocate his shoulders. He came within mere inches of closing his arms around Syndrome's neck, and he wouldn't have hesitated to snap it. Attacking his son, taking his husband and family from him—Tony would kill him, and he wouldn't even blink.

The lackey must've seen him, because electricity coursed through his system strong enough to nearly fry him. He was shocked back into place, and he hung there limply while Syndrome walked off with a manic laugh.

* * *

"Starkjet Nine transmitting, disengage, repeat, disengage," Steve demanded over the intercom, because he had to try, then shut it off and turned to the others, "We've got incoming. Two missiles, estimated impact five minutes."

"Parachutes in the back?" Phil asked.

"Company jet." Steve shook his head. "Doesn't have defense systems or parachutes, just commercial emergency procedures."

"Those aren't going to be enough." Natasha pursed her lips. "Call Thor, see where he is."

"On it." Clint gestured to the phone already open next to his ear. "Thor, buddy, where are you? What do you mean, New York? Haven't you found the kid ye—yeah, little more important, we've got missiles launched at—no, we need you here like ten minutes ago—yeah, sure, double time."

"He's not going to make it," Bruce said as Clint hung up.

"No, he's not."

"Bruce." Steve turned in his chair. "Think the Hulk remembers us?"

"Not a bet I'd want to make." Bruce looked at him sharply. "I haven't let him out in at least a decade. Even if he recognized you eventually, he'd need to blow off the steam of being cooped up first and we don't have that kind of time."

"We don't exactly have any other options here—"

"Are we gonna die?"

Oh, God.

They all turned in utter horror to see Rowan step out of the airplane bathroom, where he must've been hiding. He was shaking, blue eyes wide and worried. All the adults shot forward at once, with the exception of Steve and Natasha who had to steer, but twisted around in their seats.

"We're going to be okay, little man, don't worry." Clint assured him.

"Your father's going to come and knock those missiles right out of the sky, everything will be fine," Bruce added.

"What were you thinking, sneaking on board?" Phil demanded.

"I just wanted to come on Daddy's adventure." Rowan pouted. "He was telling Mommy on the phone that he'd reign hellfire on the ones who took Em and Pete, and I wanted to see."

"You should've stayed with Bucky and Rhodey, Rowan." Steve sighed. "But it's okay, we're gonna be fine, we just need a plan. We'll come up with a plan."

"What about Daddy?"

"Sure. Sure, Daddy's a good plan," Steve lied, "Bruce?"

"Steve, I really don't think it'll work—"

"We have that or Thor." Steve grit his teeth. Bruce was too smart not to know that even Thor couldn't catch up with them in the next…one minute and seventeen seconds. Steve flicked the com back on.

"Disengage, repeat, disengage! Starkjet Nine has children on board, I demand you disengage! Repeat, there are children on board, disengage!" Nothing. "Abort—!"

"Go away!" Rowan hollered, slamming one hand against the windowpane.

A lot of things happened at once.

For one, a streak of lightning shot down out of the sky and struck the missile. For another, the window Rowan had thrown a hand against cracked and burst. Phil, the closest, grabbed Rowan around the waist and yanked him back, but it was too late, and the air pressure began to decrease immediately and drastically. Third, Bruce hulked out.

They were all gathered at the front of the aircraft, and found themselves engulfed in Hulk just before the explosion of the missile hit them from the side, rocking the plane and blowing half of it wide open. They plummeted into the freezing ocean, and Steve was hit with a distinct, terrifying sense of déjà vu before the Hulk released them.

"Okay, did anyone else  _totally_  not see that coming?" Clint gasped as he surfaced, boggling at Rowan. "Damn, kid!"

"Language," Natasha reminded him.

"We're dead!" Rowan sobbed once Phil hauled him above water. "We survived, but we're dead!"

"We're not dead," Phil told him sternly, "And we're not going to panic, or—"

"Look out!" Clint shouted, diving forward to shove Phil and Rowan underwater and out of the way of an enormous portion of airplane that crashed into the ocean behind them.

When they surfaced, Rowan was coughing up water, but they were both alive and uninjured.

"Hulk," Steve said in his best Captain's voice. He was wearing the uniform too, so that probably helped. "Do you remember us?"

"Hulk save family," Hulk told him proudly.

"Hell yeah you did." Clint punched him amicably somewhere in the arm region. "Nice one, Big Green."

"Think you can get us to shore?" Steve asked.

"Can't jump," Hulk glanced around. "Nothing stand on. Can swim?"

"Mind if we hitch a ride?" Natasha smiled, and the Hulk gave a wide, toothy smile in return.

"Hulk take good care of you." The Hulk nodded to her. "Make Banner happy."

The Hulk scooped Natasha out of the water with such gentle care it was almost funny to watch. A little King Kong-esque. He laid out on his back and placed her on his stomach, then snatched the others up out of the water as well. He starting backstroking in the direction of the island. It was an odd way to travel, and would've been funny to watch under any other circumstances, but Steve would take what he could get.

"You're taking the fact that your family is a bunch of superheroes surprisingly well." Phil raised an eyebrow at Rowan.

"Daddy said I wasn't s'pos'ta tell." Rowan made a guilty face. "Is Daddy gonna be mad?"

"Your father's going to be incredibly proud of you," Steve told him firmly, squeezing the boy's shoulder, "You helped save our lives, Rowan. You did well."

They'd all known Thor had told Rowan of his heritage, and would do the same with Alexander when he was older. Both children had been to Asgard, as was only to be expected; they were half-Asgardian, and likely to develop powers, though no one knew for sure. Steve hadn't been aware that Thor had told Rowan about  _all_ of them, but he supposed it didn't matter.

"Does he know you have powers?"

"I didn't know I could do that." Rowan gulped. "Is it bad?"

"It's okay." Natasha stroked the boy's hair soothingly, and Rowan leaned into her. "He'll teach you how to control it."

"Kid looked pretty good at it to me." Clint snorted.

They held on to Hulk as best as they could, and waited out the ride. It was nearly two hours before they made it to land, and the sun had long set. They dragged themselves on shore, and Hulk collapsed into the beach with a heavy thud. He shuddered briefly, then Bruce was lying half-naked in the sand. He'd been wearing his Hulk-pants—someone had kidnapped his daughter, he was aware that today was a good day to have the those particular pants on—but was now shirtless. Before he could even shiver, Natasha stripped off her jacket and handed it to him, kissing his forehead as she did. He shot her a thankful smile and tugged it on.

Phil carried Rowan, unconscious and drooling into his shoulder. There was a cave visible from where they'd come ashore, and Steve, having the best night vision, gestured them towards it. They needed to find shelter for Rowan first, then they could strategize an attack and figure out how best to split up. Once they were closer, Steve caught sight of firelight, and a single hooded figure.

"I think there's only one," Steve whispered, "I'll go ahead, catch them by surprise. Stay here, I'll be back."

The others nodded, and Steve inched closer to the tunnel. The figure seemed to be huddled by the fire, nursing a sore ankle and keeping it aloft on a log. Maybe not a lackey. Then, who could—

Steve's train of thought was disrupted by a shot of something thin, white and sticky to the back of his head. He turned and got another blast to the face from a hooded figure in the tree above him—what  _was_ that, webbing?—and he ripped it off quickly, hauling the shield he'd kept safely attached to his back and hoisting it up for cover. He heard a loud gasp of  _ohmigod,_ and used it to his advantage, grabbing the tree branch and swinging up to knock his attacker out of the tree, smacking him with the flat side of his shield.

The hooded figure dropped like a rock, sprawling on the ground below with a moan of, "Oh god, that was so painfully cool."

Steve straddled him, edged the shield up under his attacker's chin. He—she? No, definitely he—was wearing an odd outfit, a mismatch of hoodies and ski goggles and a half mask to hide their identity. But…Steve paused. He could only see maybe an inch of skin, but he was also sitting on the kid, and yes, it was a kid, a  _familiar_ kid, because Steve  _knew_  his baby boy and would recognize him in any ridiculous get-up in the world.

"Peter?"


	6. Chapter 6

"Oh thank God." Steve dropped his shield to the ground with a clatter, scooping Peter up in his arms and hugging him tight.

"Oh god what's happening."

"Oh Peter, I was so worried—"

"Wow, I worried Captain America  _and_ Iron Man, that's so cool and also kind of strange wait why does Captain America know my name is that bad it sounds bad but there's also hugs so have I mentioned I'm very confused—"

Steve, with Peter still clasped to his chest, took off his headgear.

"Oh my fucking god," Peter swore.

"Language."

" _Oh my fucking god!"_ Peter stumbled back, shoving Steve away.

"Peter—"

" _My pops is Captain America what the fuck—"_ Peter began hyperventilating.

"Peter, really—"

"Oh god, does Dad know? Dad's going to have a heart attack, you will literally give him a heart attack, he will go into cardiac arrest and die when he finds out he married Captain America, he's a bigger fanboy of you than I am—"

"He knows, Peter, he's Ir—"

" _I'm the only one who didn't know?"_ Peter's loud shrieking must've worried the others, because they began to approach, Natasha leveling her firearm.

"Stand down," Steve ordered immediately and firmly, tugging Peter's goggles and mask off, "It's Peter."

" _What the fuck—"_

"I'm not kidding about your language, young man—"

"Captain America just called me a young man, because Captain America  _is my father_ I'm dead I must be dead that is the only possible explanation—"

"So, he's taking it well," Phil remarked dryly.

"Peter, what in the h—oh god." The second hooded figure exited the cave, only to freeze in horror. "Mom? Dad?"

"You're grounded for the rest of your life," Bruce informed her brusquely, though his voice wavered. He was across the short space in a second, pulling Emma into his arms and hugging her tightly, Natasha no more than a step behind him.

"I'm so confused," Peter moaned miserably.

"Did you guys really call in the Avengers?" Emma gawked at her parents incredulously.

"In a manner of speaking," Steve answered for them, stepping into Emma's line of view.

"Peter." Emma glanced over Natasha's shoulder, between Steve and Peter. "Peter, that's your fucking pops."

"I know!" Peter shouted, a touch hysterically.

"Emma." Natasha leveled Emma with a stern look.

"Peter's pops is  _Captain America_ , I think I'm allowed a swear!" Emma shouted.

"Agreed!" Peter chimed.

"You've used your allotted swears for the next year," Steve told him sternly, then looked to Bruce and Natasha. "And I'm not the only Avenger on the island."

"No." Emma spun around to face her parents. She glanced between them, narrowed her eyes, then, "That's why they called me Black Widow. I look like her cause I'm her  _freaking daughter."_

"And I'm the Hulk." Bruce sighed. "Sometimes."

"Am…am I going to…?" Emma went extremely pale, glancing at her skin as if she was going to explode into a female Hulk then and there.

"No." Bruce shook his head, reassuring her, "We did a million tests before conceiving you and a million after, you're purely human."

"Please don't say 'conceive'." Emma winced.

"I know this is a lot for you kids to take in," Steve told them, "But we're on a tight schedule and I'm going to need—"

"I can't talk to you in the suit," Peter blurted, "I can't, it's too weird, oh god—"

"Peter—"

"How could you not  _tell_ me?"

"The SRP mandates former supers can't inform their children until they're eighteen, when they can sign the same confidentiality forms we did."

"I thought you were a supporter!" Peter insisted, "You were always telling me to focus on something that wasn't superheroes!"

"The SRP ruined our lives, Peter, we don't support it." Steve had always looked forward to this discussion. To be able to include his son in the family secret, to talk about his past honestly and openly. He hadn't quite imagined it like this. "It was just a little hard for us to watch our friends and former teammates turn into nothing more than action figures on your dresser and specials on TV."

"I—I guess, but—wait, did you say 'our', why did you say 'our'—" Peter glanced between everyone, Natasha, Bruce, Phil, Clint, "Oh god, the whole freaking team is my  _family?_ Is that Iron Man and Hawkeye?  _Iron Man and Hawkeye got marrie—"_

"No," Steve interrupted swiftly, "No, Peter, Iron Man is—"

"Ew," Clint declared, "Why the hell would I marry your dad?"

"My…" Peter choked. He looked a bit light-headed. "Right. My dad. Because my dad…my dad is Iron Man. Of course he is."

There was a brief moment where Steve thought he might be okay. Then he dropped like a rock. Steve, ready, caught him before he hit the ground.

"Didn't Peter have Iron Man bedsheets a while back?" Clint quirked his head.

"Yes. Tony still gloats about it," Steve muttered, hoisting Peter up and over his shoulder.

"This is  _so_  weird." Emma's hands twitched at her sides.

"Emma, we need you to focus." Bruce faced her, leaning forward to brush back a wisp of hair. "Can you do that?"

"Yeah. Yep. Sure," Emma rattled off, clearly still processing.

"Tony reported that Syndrome said you had powers," Natasha told her, "Is that true?"

"No—" Everyone gave a sigh of relief. "—well, I mean, yes and no. I don't, but Peter does."

"That sticky stuff he shot at me." Steve placed Peter down beside the cave entrance. He hoisted his shield up, picked at the stuff stuck to it. "What is it?"

"Webbing. And that's actually not his powers, that's something he made," Emma explained, stepping over to Peter and lifting his arm up, showing them a little gadget strapped to his forearm. "He calls them web shooters. He sticks to walls though, and he's got this thing he calls spidey sense? He can sense things before they hit him, sort of."

His son really did have superpowers. God Almighty.

"How long?" Steve asked.

"A few months."

Their only son had been keeping this from them for months, and they hadn't noticed. Peter could climb goddamn  _walls_ and they hadn't noticed. They'd been so focused on his moody behavior and how to get him back in line that they hadn't even considered the fact that something other than some stupid hormones could maybe be causing it. Well, that wasn't fair—they'd tried to understand, tried to talk to him. Peter had shut them out every time they tried to have an open conversation, and his teachers had just said he could speak up a little more in class but that he seemed the same as he always had.

Still. What kind of parents didn't notice their child had  _superpowers?_ Especially when they were so intimately familiar with the process, with that world? They should've known.

"Okay." Steve set his jaw. There would be time to brood later; Tony was in trouble, and there was a supervillain on the loose. "We need to get moving. Natasha, you're with me, we're going after Tony. Clint, Phil—infiltrate and get recon, find out who and what we're up against here. Bruce, clearly the Hulk's still on our side, so you stay with Emma, Peter, and Rowan, keep them hidden and safe. Meet back here as soon as possible, but by sunrise or we'll go looking for you."

There was an immediate and unquestioning assortment of nods; God he'd missed being in command.

* * *

There were reasons Natasha had always been Steve's favorite mission partner. Well, aside from Tony, but that was a given. Natasha didn't ask him how he felt about Peter keeping his powers a secret. They didn't discuss the danger their children had been putting themselves in for apparently months, or what they were going to do about it. They made their way to the island facility in focused silence, which was exactly what Steve needed.

He couldn't think about Peter right now. Peter still had to be dealt with, but Steve was in mission-mode and the ramifications of Peter's powers were not a priority. Peter was with Bruce, which meant Peter was safe; safety was all that counted right now. Tony wasn't safe, a fact that was still eating away at Steve. Tony had a knack for getting himself kidnapped as much as he had a knack for getting himself out, but it had been a long time since they'd done this. Tony was certainly as smart and resourceful as he'd always been—age had done nothing to dampen his sharp mind—but he was out of practice at utilizing it this way.

Steve wouldn't be able to refocus on the problem of Peter's powers until Tony was safe again, so he didn't bother trying. He and Natasha followed the zipcar lines that wove throughout the jungle back towards the facility. They slipped inside, dodging security cameras and guards alike. They seemed to be mostly of the hired help variety, and none too perceptive; getting in was child's play. They made their way down the long hallway, pausing when a window revealed an enormous rocket station. They exchanged a glance, and Steve was about to text Clint, tell him to find out what the station on level C was for, when his phone buzzed. Clint.

_we c u. ur too open, keep moving. we r looking into rocket. also, maps say cell block is on level a. dont know which cell tonys in but im sure youll hav fun busting down doors and cracking skulls til u find him_

"He's too old to still text like this," Steve grumbled a complaint after deciphering Clint's text-speak, telling Natasha, "They already know about the station. Let's keep moving, Tony's on level A."

_Thanks. Keep me updated, I want to know what that's for._

_will do capperoo_

He and Natasha ventured further into the facility, down into basement level A. Though Clint had likely been half-heartedly joking, Steve did take a certain pleasure in busting open doors, knocking out a few unhelpful guards who wouldn't tell him where his husband was. It was a while before they came across him, at least an hour or two, but when they did it wasn't exactly a reassuring sight.

Tony hung limply from some sort of electronic restraining device, each hand and foot clamped in a metal ball that held him aloft and spread. The armor was nowhere to be seen. He didn't even glance up when Steve busted the door open, and that worried Steve the most. At least, it did until Tony opened his mouth.

"Why are you even here?" Tony gave a false, hollow laugh that chilled Steve to his very bones. "How could you possibly bring me any lower? Don't waste your time."

"Tony…?"

"Steve?" Tony's head shot up so fast Steve wouldn't be surprised if he'd given himself whiplash. "Oh my god, Steve!"

"What happened, what did they do to you—"

"You're alive!" Tony laughed again, a much better sound, disbelieving but richly hopeful as he broke into a wide, beautiful smile. "Oh thank god you're alive, I couldn't—I thought—"

Steve strode across the room in as few steps as possible, raised a hand to stroke across Tony's cheek. He looked physically unharmed, but for Tony to sound like that, they must've done something. Steve would make them pay for that, he'd tear the facility apart to find whoever had laid a hand on him—

"I'm just so fucking glad you're alive." Tony melted into the brief touch, relief rolling off him like a wave. "I love you so much, darling."

The clamps around Tony's hands and feet released as Natasha finished tapping away at the console behind them, and Steve embraced Tony before his feet even touched the ground, cradled him to his chest possibly a bit too tightly. Tony didn't so much as whisper a complaint.

"What did they do to you?" Steve murmured, pressing a kiss to Tony's hair.

"Nothing, sweetheart," Tony assured him, running his hands over Steve's arms, his shoulders, his face. "Nothing, you're alive, Peter's alive, everything's perfect."

"It's not perfect, tell me what they did to you—" Steve insisted.

"I know you want to crack some skulls and that's sweet and all, but I'm really just happy you're alive." Tony clasped him by the back of the neck, pulled him into a kiss that derailed any further conversation for a few long, relief-filled moments.

"Loathe to interrupt, but we need to keep moving." Natasha spoke up, eyes on the console in front of her. "An alarm just went off in the same sector of the forest we left Bruce and the kids in."

"Have you seen him?" Tony asked, gripping Steve's arm tightly, "Peter, is he alright?"

"He's fine," Steve assured, "Superpowered, unconscious, and grounded for the rest of his life, but fine."

"Unconscious?"

"He passed out when I told him you were Iron Man."

"I'm not sure if his admiration is awesome or uncomfortable."

"We can work it out later." Steve led him along down the steps. "They're going to need backup, we should head back. Natasha, text Clint, see if he and Phil found anything about the rocket, then tell them to—"

"Oh, fuck," Tony swore, "The rocket. Before Syndrome caught me, I got a look at his files—there's a killer robot headed for New York."

Steve and Natasha both froze.

"Of course there is." Natasha sighed.

"Just like the good old days," Steve agreed, looping an arm around Tony's waist. "Come on, let's find your suit."

* * *

"Not that sitting here in awkward silence isn't fun or anything…" Emma began.

"You do not get to talk right now." Bruce shot her down with a look, careful to whisper so the sleeping child beside him didn't wake.

He still wasn't quite sure how to respond to all of this. There weren't exactly parenting manuals on this sort of thing. She didn't even have superpowers, yet she was running around trying to be a superhero—Bruce didn't know what to do with that. He was worried, of course he was, but there was a part of him that was proud, too. He'd always seen Natasha's fire in her, and this was just more of the same.

Natasha, however, was trained. She'd spent her whole life in training. She could take on any super and likely come out on top, but she'd been trained long before she ever went toe to toe with anything of that sort. Emma hadn't been. Well, she knew a few things—more than a few things, they'd both wanted Emma to be able to defend herself—but nothing near what she'd need to know for a genuine supervillain. House fires, petty theft, burglaries gone wrong, that was all manageable. It'd scare the hell out of him, anything involving his baby girl and danger would, but rationally speaking he was aware that she could likely handle those things.

Killer robots? Supervillains? Not a chance. He doubted Peter stood a chance either, powers or not. They were smart, they were capable, but they were  _kids._ Just having them on this island set him on edge.

"Dad, I—"

"Stop."

"But I—"

"We're not having this discussion right now."

"Daddy, I didn't mean to—"

"Emma." Bruce held up a hand. She only called him Daddy when she really felt guilty, but it didn't change anything. "Stop. We'll talk about this when your mother returns."

"We were just trying to make a change," Emma insisted, stubborn as ever. Stubborn as everyone else in their family was, really. Bruce sighed again.

"I know." He leaned back against the cave wall.

"Someone had to help—"

"It didn't have to be you," Bruce did his best to clamp down the flare of anger.

"Then who else?" Emma pushed the point anyway. "Someone has to make a difference, do the right thing—"

"If you want to make a difference," Bruce snapped, "There's a million ways that aren't illegal, for one, or life-threatening for another. But you don't just want to make difference, you want to fight bad guys and save lives directly and that's fine, I understand that, but try the police force, become a firefighter, join up with SHIELD or the FBI or the CIA or any of the hundreds of other organizations that will train you to handle the dangers you want to face. I've  _done_ the right thing. I've been hunted for doing the right thing. Don't you dare call sneaking around behind our backs for an adrenaline rush and the prideful euphoria of calling yourself a superhero 'doing the right thing'."

Emma opened her mouth once, closed it. Fell silent. Stayed silent. Bruce knew he'd been harsh, but he'd also been truthful and he was too angry, too worried for his daughter's safety to phrase himself any gentler. They sat in silence until Peter came to.

"Whazzat? Uncle Bruce?" Peter blinked, rubbed his forehead. "What are you…ohh shit."

"I take it you remember." Bruce stood, leaving the sleeping Rowan's side to go help Peter sit up.

"I wasn't dreaming?" Peter winced.

"About your parents being Captain America and Iron Man?" Emma snorted. "Do you wish you were dreaming?"

"I'll get back to you on that." Peter leaned forward, put his head in his hands. "Man. What the  _fuck?"_

"You've been warned about that language." Bruce clasped a hand to Peter's shoulder, reassuring in spite of his words. He glanced back at Rowan to make sure the kid hadn't heard Peter swear; he was still unconscious.

"Why wouldn't they tell me?" Peter looked up at Bruce pleadingly, then frowned, jerked his shoulder away. "Why wouldn't  _you_ tell me? What's wrong with you, with all of you, that you wouldn't tell your own kids?"

"The SRP means you have to sign a confidentiality form before we can tell you, barring extenuating circumstances." Bruce gestured to the cave to indicate the current extenuating circumstances. "You were both going to be told on your eighteenth birthdays. And right now, you're the last person who gets to complain about keeping secrets."

Peter ducked his head, let out a long sigh. Bruce quirked his head, paused a moment; he recognized that sound, he knew he did. It was faint, but he  _knew_ that sound. He peered down into the depths of cave, and Emma glanced in the same direction.

"You hear it too?"

"I do…" Bruce started, then stopped. He ran over to Rowan, hauled the boy up and over his shoulder. Rowan startled awake, but he didn't have time to apologize. He grabbed at Emma and Peter's arms, yanked them up and along. "Jet engine, go!"

He shoved the children in front of him, out of the cave and into the bushes, before diving to the side along with them. The flames shot out less than half a minute after him, the roar of the engine so loud it rang in his ears long after the flames died down.

"What the hell was  _that?"_ Emma shrieked over the ringing in his ears and Rowan's loud, terrified sobbing.

"We're going to die on this island," Peter moaned, "God, we're all going to die—"

"Stop that," Bruce ordered to the teenagers. He ran his hands over Rowan's back, through his hair. "Hey, buddy, it's okay. Everyone's fine, look. Emma and Peter are right here, your aunt and uncles will be back soon and we'll get off this island. Sound good?"

"What was that?" Rowan gave a miserable sniffle.

"It was just an engine," Bruce assured him, "A loud one. But we're all okay, see?"

"When's Daddy gonna come?" Rowan's lower lip wobbled.

"Soon, Rowan, I promise." Bruce rubbed his back, and Rowan's whimpers subsided. He turned to the teenagers again. "You want to play superhero? Try less panicking. Think about the people around you, focus on how your actions affect them."

"Easy for you to say, this is easy for you." Peter frowned. "You're an Avenger."

"And it's a miracle any of us are still alive." Bruce snorted. "Your father in particular."

"Which one?"

"Take your pick." Bruce shook his head with a rueful laugh. "They were always disturbingly reckless, even for our line of work."

"Identification, please." A tinny, electronic voice chirped from high in the trees above them.

"What was that?" Emma jumped.

"Don't—" Bruce started, then stopped, pressed a hand to his forehead. Too late. "—say anything."

"Voice key incorrect."

"Run." Bruce quickly stood, hurrying the others along.

"Why are we—?" Peter started.

The bird opened its beak to emit a furious, angry alarm as it took off into the sky to chase after them.

"That's why," Bruce answered, "Peter, take the bird out."

Peter complied quickly, firing off three rounds, one to cover the eyes and beak, the other two at its mechanical wings. Bruce led them into the forest, but the bird was followed all too quickly by huge black drones. There were at least five, maybe six, and each was piloted by two henchmen in all black, armed with guns. They were no match for the drones, and wound up cornered within minutes. Bruce kept the kids behind him, an arm across each of the teenager's chests defensively. While henchman from each drone disembarked, Bruce whispered to the kids.

"When I say go, you run. Peter, if you can carry them both with that web of yours, do it. Get out of here as fast as you can and don't come back. Understand?"

"But what about—"

"Just listen to me,"Bruce hissed, but the henchmen came close enough to hear before he could say anything further, leveling firearms at them threateningly.

"That's enough, not another word!"

"What are they, supers?"

"Hey, those are the two who got off earlier—"

"Where did the little kid come from?"

"And what about the old man?"

Bruce gave a soft snort. He'd show them an old man.

"Go," he ordered, giving them a hard shove backwards as he did.

The henchmen might've fired, but any bullets were deflected by a Hulk-sized shield as Bruce's world faded to green.

* * *

Peter swung through the jungle, Emma and Rowan each clinging desperately to his side. He couldn't carry them that way long, they were too heavy even for spider-strength, but he could at least get them out of the immediate danger zone before they switched to retreating on foot. He couldn't hear any drones behind him, though he did hear a roar or two and a call that sounded distinctly like  _Hulk smash!_

"My dad is actually the Hulk," Emma murmured, "My dad actually physically transforms into an enormous green monster when he gets angry. Oh my god."

"Focus, Emma—"

"Shut up, you fainted when you found out," she snapped.

"You already knew!"

"Yeah, but I hadn't  _seen_ it." Emma shook her head. "Jesus. Remind me not to break curfew anymore."

"How about I do that after we get off the island of death, danger, and awkward family revelations?"

"The sooner the better."

"Man, I will never get over watching your dad turn into—ick!" Peter swung right through a patch of flies, and while he was busy wiping out his mouth, missed his next grab.

They bounced around a bit before hitting the ground, and they were barely there a moment before they could hear buzzing behind them, and not of the insect variety. Crap. The Hulk must've missed one. They took off into the foliage, racing for cover. The drone was immense and clearly deadly; it had a circular blade spinning around it that cut through every tree, bush, and vine in its path, a blade that would slice right through them all in less than a second given the chance.

They ducked off course, took cover under the nearest bushes, and stayed quiet. The buzzing of the drone passed overhead and faded, and they came out just in time to get accosted by a henchman with a gun.

"Freeze!"

"You first," Peter threw his hands up, shot once at the gun to clog it then again at the henchman's face to distract him.

"That didn't really work as a comeback. You didn't actually freeze him," Emma pointed out as he picked her and Rowan up so they could resume swinging through the jungle in the very unhelpful direction of 'away' Uncle Bruce had provided.

"When you get superpowers, you can come up with the cool one-liners." Peter turned his head to respond. This meant he wasn't looking where he was going, which meant he didn't see what he was about to smack into until—

"Watch out—!" Emma started, but they were already colliding.

They slammed into something hard and metal, and tumbled to the ground. Peter hit his head somewhere along the way, but he was only dazed for a second and was about to let off another shot of web to catch himself, Emma, and Rowan, when someone else caught them first.

"You really ought to watch where you're swinging." Captain America—uh, Pops?—sighed. "That's a dangerous way to travel."

Oh, god.

"Kids! You're all okay, thank god, I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Oh  _god._ That was Iron Man. It was Iron Man he'd just slammed into like an idiot, Iron Man that was now landing beside him and pulling him out of Captain America's arms to hug him very tightly and oh god Iron Man was his  _dad—_

"Dad—" Peter managed.

"I was so worried about you, I'm so glad you're alright—" The faceplate lifted and holy fuck it really was his dad, his dad that was kissing him soundly on each cheek and hello, he was seventeen, come on, really— "You're grounded until the day you die but I'm so glad you're alright—"

"Punishments can be dealt with later." Natasha—Black Widow?—reminded them, shooting Emma a look that said she'd be receiving her own in due time. "Where's your father?"

"He, uh…" Emma waved a hand. When words didn't seem forthcoming, she used both hands to gesture for 'big'.

"He turned  _green,"_ Rowan offered seriously.

"He Hulked out?" Pops offered in amusement.

"Yeah." Emma nodded.

"That," Peter agreed.

"Good, he'll be easy to find." Dad shut the faceplate again, his voice taking on a metallic edge. "I'll fly up and—"

"Friends!"

"Or not."

The Hulk came crashing into the clearing, looking no worse for wear than when they'd left him with five killer drones and ten henchmen with guns. Wow.

"Thank you." Natasha placed a hand on the Hulk's arm, and Peter thought idly that his aunt was kind of a badass. He'd probably wet his pants before managing to pat the Hulk that casually. "May I have my husband back?"

The Hulk gave a rumbling nod, and shrunk down with startling complacency.

Which was, of course, precisely when four brand new drones came buzzing in.

Peter's first thought was that Bruce would need to Hulk out again, but no one else seemed to bat an eye. Natasha didn't even look at the drones, just caught Bruce when he swayed and looped an arm around him to keep him upright. Rowan ducked behind Peter's legs while Pops caught one of the low-flying drones with a fist, brought it down. The pilots jumped out, guns at the ready, but Pops knocked them both unconscious before they could even take aim.

Dad had taken off into the sky to deal with the other three; he caught one and threw it into another, then swung the third and final one around like a shot put and threw it at Pops, who sent it into the ground with one well-timed punch. Dad swooped in and lifted Pops back and away, and they landed back beside the rest of the team right as the drone exploded. They weren't even looking.

"I love you so much," they said in unison. Dad's faceplate was up before they touched down, and they were sucking face practically before they finished the sentence.

"They always kiss when things explode," Bruce, once again human, advised Peter and Emma, who were both looking away uncomfortably. His parents were too old to make out, he was pretty sure it disturbed the natural order of the universe. "Welcome to being a superhero, where these scenarios are everyday and explosions are romantic. Having fun yet?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Time out!"

Before anyone could react, they were all caught in a blue light, the zero point energy Syndrome had used before. The black and white villain hopped off a drone of his own, narrowing his eyes at the group.

"What have we here?"

The zero point energy prevented them from speaking, so Syndrome was free to continue his monologue. He moved them around a bit, his eyes growing wider and wider.

"Oh, no. Oh, no no no." He moved them again, pairing Pops with Dad and Bruce with Natasha, shifting Emma with her parents and Peter with his. " _Captain America?_ You married  _Captain America?_ That is so out of character, I can't even begin to—what was all that about 'I work alone'? You were the vigilante, the rogue! He's the patriotic do-gooder in a flag, why would you—ugh, don't even get me started, we don't have time for this."

If Peter wasn't stuck in zero point gravity, he'd be rolling his eyes. Hello, any  _real_  fan knew Iron Man only pushed everyone away because he was seeking validation. It was obvious he didn't feel like a real hero, that being Iron Man was all about proving himself and making up for his past mistakes. Iron Man had never forgiven himself, so he didn't expect anyone else to, either; he pushed people away, but if anyone held on and really got under all his masks, he'd probably do anything to keep them close and—

_And_  that was his dad he was psychoanalyzing. Awesome. This day really could not get weirder.

"Two families of supers?" Syndrome laughed gleefully. "Oh, this is just too good."


	7. Chapter 7

"You know, for all Tony likes to think he's the best Avenger," Clint pointed out as he delivered a throat punch to the nearest henchmen, "I think Peter's just been feeding that ego of his. This makes his second kidnapping in the space of like three hours, and rusty or not that's frankly a little pathetic. Next time, we really should—"

"There's not going to be a next time." Phil shot him a warning look as he flipped one of their attackers over his shoulder, elbowed him in the solar plexus, and took his gun. "This has been…"

"Admit it, it's been fun." Clint grinned, swinging his bow around to catch the guard attempting to sneak up on him with a surprise blow to the skull. He dropped like a rock. "C'mon, it's me, I know you're thinking it."

"Interesting," Phil compromised with a half-smile, which was basically the same as saying Clint was right. He checked the magazine of the gun he'd swiped, and, satisfied, slotted it back into place. He glanced over, the sympathy in his features visible only to Clint. "But it doesn't mean the supers are coming back."

"Why not?" Clint shrugged, faux-casual. "We could. Clearly the villains are back, why shouldn't the heroes jump in too?"

"Villain, not villains," Phil corrected as they continued down the hallway, "At least not yet. And if we can cover this up, maybe we can keep it that way."

"There's a killer robot headed for New York, you really think we can pull off a cover-up?"

"If we stop it before it gets there."

"And if we don't?"

"We can work out how to handle the media coverage later." Phil made a small, irritated noise that meant he knew exactly what Clint really wanted to ask and wasn't in the mood to dance around it. "I don't think we should go public. Not without very, very good cause."

"There's—"

"The robot doesn't count," Phil, anticipating Clint's answer, cut him off, "If we can't stop it, we can spin the coverage."

Before Clint could formulate further argument, he caught sight of more henchmen down the hall. He made the sign for silence, then let off three sonic arrows to take the group out. He and Phil proceeded, taking and using the highest access keycard they found to get through the next set of doors.

"I know this all brings up old memories," Phil said while they waited for the elevator, "And I—"

"What the—?" The elevator doors opened to reveal three new henchmen.

"Hey." Clint took out the one who'd spoken, needing all of six seconds to flip and pin him. "The man was talking."

"I was going to say that I've missed this too," Phil finished, highlighting his words with a palm thrust to his opponent's nose, "But we're not needed anymore, at least not often, and that's a good thing."

"Maybe," Clint admitted. He knew Phil was right…but it still felt damn good to be back in action.

They took the elevator down to the sub-levels, then popped open a vent shaft and used the ventilation system to get eyes on their teammates. They found the Banners first, alone. They were hooked up to some electromagnetic restraint system, and Bruce had some kind of blue force field around him that seemed to stop him from moving or speaking. Some kind of Hulk-proofing? Clint couldn't be sure. They split up; Phil popped open the vent and dropped in to free the Banners, while Clint continued on in search of the Starks and Rowan.

He found them in the last room at the end, hooked up to the same restraint system. Hammer—Syndrome, whoever—was in the front of the room, babbling away like villains tended to, illustrating his plan with the help of a large TV playing live news coverage on the rocket that had just crashed into New York.

"Oh, come on, you gotta admit this is cool. It's just like a movie! The robot will emerge dramatically, do some damage, throngs of screaming people, and just when all hope is lost…Syndrome will save the day! I'll be a bigger heroes than you freaks ever were!"

"You killed off real heroes,  _good_  heroes, just so you could play dress-up?"

"Dress-up? I'm real enough to defeat you!" Syndrome snapped at Tony, "And I did it without your precious gifts, too, your oh-so-special powers—"

"What  _powers?"_ Tony demanded, exasperated, "You're doing what I did, you're just shittier at it."

"You think I'm  _shitty?"_ Syndrome sneered, jabbed a finger at the screen. "Just you watch. I'll show you. I'll show you the most spectacular heroics you've ever seen!"

"I married Captain America, I'm pretty hard to impress." Tony smirked.

"Now, Tony? Really?" Steve hissed, but Syndrome was stalking back over to the control panel, yanking up the dial.

The surge of electricity clearly hit Tony hard, rippling through him like a wave; he convulsed a moment, before letting his head drop forward with a breathless huff. Rowan started to whimper, and Syndrome sneered. Tony, perhaps seeing this, smiled through the pain and kept chattering, kept Syndrome's attention.

"Do you know how long it's been since I've been able to say 'I married Captain America' out loud? How am I supposed to resist an opening like that, I mean, c'mon—"

Syndrome scowled, twisted the dial again. Tony gave a guttural shout, while Steve struggled against his constraints with a murderous glare.

"Every time you do that to him is one more bone of yours I break," Steve snarled and shit, Clint hadn't heard  _that_ voice in a while.

Not since…probably not since that time in Austria, the villain who'd thought it'd be fun to get a little BDSM-y with Tony and stupidly hadn't considered that Tony's superhuman fiancé might have something to say about it. Steve hadn't thrown him through a wall; he'd thrown him though  _eight_ walls. Frankly, the guy was lucky Steve had been more concerned with getting to Tony or he might have followed up on the wall toss instead of leaving him for Thor to deal with.

He saw both Rowan and Peter's eyes go wide as they stared at Steve, and Clint could pinpoint the precise moment his father's gravitas truly, finally resonated with Peter. Captain America was considered a living legend for a damn good reason, and he lived up to every inch of the hype; Clint couldn't really blame Tony for relishing the few opportunities he got to brag.

"Don't make promises you can't keep," Syndrome just hummed, turning the dial up on Tony once more out of spite.

Villains were always so unconcerned with Steve at first, mistaking the fact that he didn't kill his opponents for some kind of 'gentle soul' bullshit. Hurting Tony, hurting  _any_ of them, was pretty much signing up for an immediate course in Cap Is A Creatively Vicious Bastard 101.

"Three." Steve's face was a blank slate. He wasn't fucking around anymore.

"Make it a femur or something, that time stung," Tony huffed.

"Tony?" Rowan whimpered, and Clint's heart sunk. No, not Rowan, come on, he was just a kid—

"That's enough, peanut gallery."

Syndrome yanked a different dial, electrocuting all of them at once, Peter and Rowan included. The children screamed, and it was without question the worst sound Clint had ever heard. He'd seen hell of a lot of awful things in his life; more than he cared to think about had been to kids. But these kids...they were different, they were his _family._ Jesus. Rowan shot off some electricity of his own, but it ricocheted around the room wildly, no direction or purpose; he didn't have the control for it, not in that kind of pain.

Syndrome seemed to assume it was a technological malfunction, swearing and cutting the jolt short. The kids slumped forward, breathing in short, panicked gasps. Steve and Tony both watched with furious, horrified expressions, but grit their teeth and said nothing while Peter shook and Rowan sobbed. They were too wary now of inducing further punishment at the children's expense. Syndrome just laughed at their silence.

"That's more like it." Syndrome turned, stalking out with a maniacal laugh. "I'll be back for you later; I've got a city to save. Enjoy the show."

The moment the doors shut again, Clint jimmied open the vent and dropped into the room, crossing to the console to let them down. The moment they dropped, Steve and Tony raced to Peter and Rowan, folding the boys into a crushing hug the second they could. Tony bent to pick up Rowan, who was sobbing too hard to be intelligible anymore. He cradled him close to his chest, bouncing a bit and doing the best he could to calm the terrified child. Clint approached, ran a soothing hand over Rowan's back.

"It's going to be alright, Rowan, we're almost through," Clint tried to assure him.

"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have—god, Rowan, I—I'm so sorry—" Peter started, pained and guilt-ridden, but they all shushed him.

"Don't even start," Steve ordered firmly, pressing a kiss to Peter's forehead, "You've been so brave, Peter. Try and hold onto that just a little longer."

"It's just, this is all my fault, I  _knew_ we shouldn't have touched that stupid scanner—"

"Whatever mistakes you made, Peter, this is Syndrome's fault, not yours," Tony told him.

"Having superpowers doesn't make you a superhero." Steve clasped a hand to Peter's shoulder. "It takes hard work and a lot of practice, and even that doesn't mean much if you don't have a good team watching your back."

"Took six people the first time we saved the world," Tony pointed out, "You tried with two. All things considered, you didn't do half bad."

"This so completely surreal." Peter just shook his head, pressing the palms of his hands over his eyes. "There's a part of me going 'oh god, Captain America and Iron Man think I didn't do half bad, that's so cool' and another part reminding me 'that's your dads, you idiot' and another is just screaming ' _Captain America and Iron Man are my dads'_ on repeat."

"So I take it you're still processing," Clint said after a moment.

"It's better than some of the other reactions we've gotten." Tony snorted.

"Pepper does have amazing aim with those heels." Steve laughed in agreement.

"This is literally the weirdest day of my life." Peter sighed.

"You're telling me."

Clint turned to see Emma, along with her parents and Phil, in the doorway.

"Is Rowan alright?" Bruce frowned, concerned.

"Physically, I think so. Where in the  _hell_ is you-know-who?" Tony hissed, careful not to say Rowan's father's name and accidentally set him off again. He still had his face buried in Tony's shirt, clutching to it with vice-like grip.

"Outside, with reinforcements," Phil replied, "I called him, let him know we have Rowan and asked him to lead SHIELD to the island. We'll take control of the situation here, shut this place down. You're all taking a Quinjet back to New York to deal with the threat there."

"About time SHIELD got off their butts." Tony leaned back, got Rowan to look at him. "Hey, guess who came to get you?"

"Mommy and Daddy?" Rowan sniffled.

"Mommy's on the first flight out, I'm sure. But Daddy's outside, we're going to go see him now. Sound good?" Rowan nodded profusely before burying his face back in Tony's shirt. Tony melted, kissed Rowan's temple. "Everything's going to be fine, buddy. I promise."

"Let's get moving." Clint gestured towards the door, and they started out. Steve caught Tony by the elbow.

"Don't strain yourself, let me carry him."

"I'm fine, it wasn't too bad—"

"I know they did something to you earlier, too." The muscle in Steve's jaw ticked. "Don't tell me they didn't."

"I meant it when I said I'm fine, sweetheart. Just having you here, alive…that's all I need." Tony stopped walking, leaned over to press a kiss to Steve's cheek as he passed him Rowan. "But if it makes you feel better, you can carry him."

"Thank you," was all Steve said as he accepted the child, but he was watching Tony with wary concern.

Clint couldn't help wondering what Tony had meant by it as well; having Steve alive was certainly an odd way to put it. Tony only got weirder once they started boarding the Quinjet.

"Hey, look, game plan: it's a giant robot, and you're all pretty squishy, so how about I just head back? Rhodey and I can take this one for the team, easy."

Clint, not to mention everyone else, glanced at Steve, their unofficial—well, official, if marriage counted—Tony translator. He didn't look amused, though there was a faint furrow of confusion to his brow.

"What are you talking about?"

"There's plenty to deal with here, I'm sure they could use your backup—"

"I'm not really the backup guy, Tony." Steve frowned. "What's going on?"

"I'm asking you to stay back, that's all."

"And I'm telling you not a chance."

"I have to do this one alone."

"You don't have to do anything alone, I'm your husband, we're your teammates, that's the  _point."_

"I know that, I'm just saying—"

"I'm with you, Tony, for better or worse, and we've seen a hell of a lot worse than killer robots. What exactly are you trying to get at here?"

Shit. Steve was starting to get pissed. Obviously Tony wasn't coming clean about something, even Clint could see that, and Steve and Tony weren't exactly the kind of couple who kept secrets from each other. He exchanged a glance with the other Avengers. They had places to be, but even now, no one was eager to get in the middle of a fight between those two.

"I'm just—I'm not—" Tony grit his teeth.

"Not what?"Steve demanded.

"I'm not…" Tony ran a hand through his hair, frustration evident. "I'm not strong enough—"

"And your solution is to push me to the damn sideline so you can—"

" _I can't lose you again!"_ Tony shouted, grabbing Steve by the shoulders tight enough to bruise. Hell, he was in the suit, he probably  _did_ leave bruises; realizing this, Tony released Steve immediately and slumped forward, anger draining out in a flash. "I can't. Not again. I'm not…I'm not strong enough."

Steve leaned into Tony, bumped their foreheads together, and Clint knew a Stark mouthfuck coming on when he saw one. He raised his hands, covering Emma and Peter's eyes. Neither protested. When Steve and Tony finished having their moment, Steve took Tony's hands.

"If we work together, you won't have to be. Besides. We're superheroes," Steve teased with a smile, "What could happen?"

"You know, I think I get it now." Tony made a face. "That's really not a comforting phrase."

"Everything will be fine, sweetheart. I promise." Steve leaned in for one more quick peck, then turned and nodded his head at the Quinjet, from mushy husband to stoic leader in the blink of an eye as only he could. "Well, come on team. Load up."

* * *

"Babe?" Bucky called.

"What?" Rhodey shouted back, "I'm busy!"

"Come here!"

"I'm trying to feed the kid!"

"Pour it some cheerios and get in here!"

"I've already seen the cat video, Bucky, it's not as funny as you think it is—"

"I'm talking about the killer robot storming through Manhattan, you dick!"

"The  _what?"_

Rhodey barreled into their bedroom not a moment later, taking in the news segment playing on TV in stunned surprise. The robot looked vaguely like a fat, metallic spider; it was enormous, big and black and shiny, with six claw arms and an indestructible, round center. The military was already on the scene and firing missiles, but nothing seemed to do much good. The reporter on-screen looked terrified.

"Dibs," they both declared at once. Then, "I called it. No, I called it."

"You're better with babies—" Bucky tried.

"Like hell I am, it's thrown up on me twice—"

"You can't leave me with the kid, I'll lose this one too!"

"You just need practice, look at that, perfect time to practice—"

"Not if I suit up first—"

"Try it." Rhodey smirked as he took off out the door, presumably to the basement to attempt to suit up first.

No chance. Bucky was  _not_ staying with the kid, not when there was a killer robot running amok and they were getting their first supervillain action in years. Already pumped, he dug out the remote for his sliding panel and pressed the button, their bookshelves sliding away and opening up to reveal his suit.

Or, it  _should've_ opened up to reveal his suit.

"Honey!" Bucky shouted, throwing the remote on their bed in frustration.

"What?" Rhodey called back innocently. Damn it.

"Where's my supersuit?"

"What?"

"Where. Is. My. Supersuit?"

"I put it away!"

"Where?" Bucky demanded, "I'm looking right at where it goes!"

"Why do you need to know?"

"I need it!"

"Not for babysitting!"

"The public is in danger!"

"Which is why  _I—"_ Rhodey appeared in the doorway, already encased in familiar gunmetal grey. "—am going out to save it."

"You tell me where my suit is, damn it!" Bucky demanded, "We're talking about the greater good!"

"Please," Rhodey snorted, lifting War Machine's faceplate to smirk at him. "I'm the greatest good you're ever gonna get."

He kissed Bucky on the cheek then took off, flying through their hallway and knocking at least half the pictures off the walls.

"Bastard!" Bucky shouted.

"I love you too!" Rhodey called back.

In the kitchen, the baby started crying.

Oh, hell no.

* * *

By the time they made it back to New York, Syndrome had already lost control.

Rowan was in SHIELD's care now, but they had— _extremely_ reluctantly—brought the teenagers with them, if only because either way they'd be in danger and at least this way they could keep an eye on them. The whole team was back together now, and as they disembarked the Quinjet, Tony even saw Rhodey looping through the sky, just like old times.

"You couldn't take any longer?" Rhodey opened their suit-to-suit comm line, tossing the line at him good-naturedly as he blasted away at the robot.

"You know me, always fashionably late." Tony retorted with a grin, taking off into the sky to join him. "Any signs of a guy calling himself Syndrome? That's our real target."

"Black and white suit, giant S on the front?"

"That's our man."

"Robot threw him into a building a while back. I think he's unconscious, I haven't seen him since. Bucky's looking for him."

"Wait, Bucky? Who's watching Alexander?"

"James, if you have left my son alone, I shall not show you mercy!" Thor thundered into the comm. The rest of the team must have started to plug in.

"Darcy's got him, Thor," Rhodey assured, "Bucky didn't want to miss the action so he gave her a call."

"If you guys ever try to adopt, I'm calling child protective services," Clint told them, the next to put in his comm.

"Agreed." Natasha snorted, following suit. "I'm going to find Bucky, get him a comm."

"Cap, you plugged in yet?" Tony asked.

"What've you got?" Steve replied from the ground.

"War Machine says the robot threw Syndrome into a building somewhere. If Peter and Emma insist on helping, fit them with comms and send them with Widow and Bucky to find him. He's harmless enough on his own, and he should be unconscious so that'll keep them out of trouble—"

"I can help with the robot, you don't need four people on Syndrome, let me—" Peter cut in.

"We don't need you on the ground," Steve cut him off with an order, "Go with Emma and Widow, meet up with Bucky and find Syndrome."

"And get his glove, it controls the robot," Tony added, "You saw him earlier, did you get a look at it?"

"Yeah," Peter grumbled.

"We're on it," Emma conceded easier; she was a natural strategist, Tony wasn't surprised she saw Steve's point of view.

"Good," Steve began calling orders, "Hawkeye, I need you up high and talking to Iron Man—get an analysis of it's weak points from him, try your explosive arrows or some EMPs if you've got them. Bruce, get angry and get smashing. Thor, take to the sky, see if lightning can get us anywhere. War Machine, I need you and Iron Man running analysis on this thing, let me know if you get anything. In the meantime, it's unmanned, so give it your biggest and best shots that won't cause unnecessary collateral."

"Time to go big or go home," Rhodey agreed, "I think we've got a—"

While the others were talking, Tony caught sight of something far more important; two blocks away from Tony and a block from the Quinjet and the others, Peter was already webslinging at the robot, trying to take out it's sensors.

"Peter, you get your ass back here,  _now!"_ Tony shouted.

Peter didn't even flinch; a check to HUD confirmed that he'd turned his comm off. The others heard Tony loud and clear though, and they stopped strategizing to start off towards Peter. Tony hit the thrusters, but wasn't nearly close enough when the robot snatched Peter up, mid-swing, and threw him to the ground. The robot moved on top of him, began to slam down.

" _No!"_ Tony overrode the safety levels on the thrusters, but he still wasn't going to—

Steve dove under it a split second before the robot hit Peter. For a brief second Tony's heart stopped—God,  _again,_ not again, he couldn't—and then he saw the sliver of air between the robot and the ground; Steve was holding it up. Tony shot through the crack, grabbed Peter around the waist and propelled them both out. Steve flexed and stood to his full height, managing to hoist the bottom of the robot above his head. The robot responded by reaching underneath, clasping Steve in a claw, and throwing him into an office building.

"Cap, are you—" Tony demanded.

"I'm alright," Steve confirmed, "Iron Man, come and get me, you and I are going to see if we can dent that hull."

"Got it." Tony set his jaw, resisting the urge to scream at his son. He took a breath, told himself there were more important problems, that he'd deal with it later. "Peter, turn your comm back on. Get to Emma and Widow. Find Syndrome."

"Dad, I can—"

"I don't  _care_  what you can do!" Tony couldn't help it; he was too terrified for his reckless, irresponsible son's safety to keep a lid on the anger already boiling over. "What you  _did_ almost got you both killed! Just keep your goddamn comm on, stay the hell out of the way, and fucking listen to us when we tell you something!"

He dropped Peter off on the roof of the nearest building, before diving into the one Steve had been thrown into. Silence echoed over the comms. Tony tracked Steve's, flew through the building and scooped him up. Steve shot him a meaningful look, and Tony switched their mics off.

"I know, I shouldn't have—" he began.

"All I want to say is go easy on him," Steve told him gently, no rebuke in his voice, "He just found out his whole family is super. He's trying to prove he belongs here, that he's one of us. We both know what it's like to have something to prove. It makes you reckless, among other things, but he's learning on the fly and he's doing alright. Cut him some slack."

"I will. I'm trying. I just…" Tony swallowed, kept his voice steady. "I can't lose you again, baby. And both of you, at once? I wouldn't be able to…to go on, to even  _function,_ much less ever heal. _"_

"We're talking about where all this is coming from later." Steve made an unhappy noise. "Don't think I've forgotten about that. But we can do this, Tony. Someone pretty damn smart once told me that together, we could do anything."

"I was trying to sweet-talk you into a proposal."

"And look how that turned out. Now." Steve readjusted himself, moving into position. "Throw me at the robot."

"No wonder Peter's a damn danger junkie," Tony grumbled, but followed instructions and launched Steve at the robot as they met up with it around the corner.

Steve sent it crashing down but didn't actually impact the hull, and he flipped off it like a gymnast to land back on the ground. He went after the weak points in it's joints while Tony went after it's visor, sending a missile straight at the center. The robot just tucked its head in and the missile missed, but the explosion rocked the robot to the side. The Hulk hurled himself at it next, fists denting but not crunching the metal like his attacks usually did. Thor reigned down the lightning, but the robot only shrugged it off, sent a claw crashing into Thor's stomach before picking up Hulk and trying to crunch him. Hulk was able to overpower the claw at least, breaking free of the grip and dropping back to the ground with a moody, displeased grunt; Hulk didn't often go up against opponents that didn't immediately crumble to his might.

"Guys, I think I found—!" Clint began from up on his rooftop, waving a white device in the air. The robot caught sight of him, and snatched him up in a claw. "Shit shit shit—"

Clint pressed all the buttons he could, until one of them made the robot drop him; ten stories from the ground. Rhodey swooped in and caught him, but the robot was single-mindedly focused on getting the remote now and not far behind.

"Hawkeye, I'm open!" Steve called over the comm, and Clint, still in Rhodey's arms, yanked out an arrow, looped it through the remote-glove, and fired it off far above Steve's head.

"Go long, Cap!"

Steve took off, racing through the streets away from the robot. The robot was quick to change course though, sending off shots from a gun attached to it's visor as it did, until Peter used his web to sling a metal grate with pinpoint accuracy at the gun and knocked it right off. He looked to Tony, and Tony nodded his approval.

Rhodey scooped Steve up off the ground while the robot was distracted; Hulk and Thor tried to keep it that way, smashing away with Mjolnir and their fists, but couldn't seem to make much headway. The robot shot up into the air, landing with a smash directly in front of Rhodey and Steve. Rhodey couldn't stop in time, and they smacked into it head-on, rebounded back. Steve dropped the remote, and Tony swooped in for it; the robot launched a claw at him. The claw closed around him and sent him flying away from the robot, missing grabbing the remote by inches.

Clint fired off EMP arrows at it's shoulder joints, and that seemed to have at least a temporary effect. The robot shuddered a moment, then seemed to resolve the problem, and the next two EMPs did nothing. Shit, Tony knew it was a learning robot but it was still insane to rewrite coding that fast. No wonder this thing had ditched Syndrome. In the split seconds it took the robot had fight off the internal attack though, the remote had disappeared.

"I've got the remote," Natasha said over the comm, "I'm taking cover back on seventh street, it doesn't know where I am. "

"Wait, who's got the kids?" Steve questioned.

"I got em, Cap, they're fine," Bucky assured over his newly plugged in comm.

"Oh, awesome, you have a  _great_  track record with children." Tony rolled his eyes.

"Boys." Natasha shut them up. "Remote for a deadly robot. Instructions."

"Press the big red button," Clint offered.

"Do not press the big red button," Steve ordered, "Don't press anything, we don't know what it could do. Iron Man, get to Widow, play with it and get us a kill switch. We'll hold the robot here."

"Copy." Tony nodded.

"Wait, Pops—" Peter started, and Tony very nearly cut him off. He was a breath away from telling Peter to stay out of it and let them do their job, when he remembered the look on Peter's face as he'd shot off the metal grate at the robot's gun, and what Steve had reminded him of, about having something to prove. He just wanted to be helpful. Tony let him talk. "—Emma and I saw Syndrome use the second left button on the top to fire up the claw the other day, and I saw the schematics, the only thing that can pierce it's shell—"

"—is itself," Tony finished, having seen the same schematics, "So if I position it right—"

"—aim it at the lower center, little to the—"

"—left, get the central programming system—"

"—we could knock it clean out."

"…yeah." Tony said at last, unable to help a smile, "Yeah, we could. Good job, Peter."

"Change of plans, we do that," was all Steve said, but Tony was hovering close enough to the ground that he could see Steve's face. He was beaming at seeing them working together again. "Natasha, you got that?"

"Second left button."

"Good." Steve nodded concisely. "Thor, War Machine, line it up, get it as close as you can. We want a clear, clean shot."

Thor and Rhodey baited it, drew it in, while Tony took aim.

"Now!" Steve ordered.

"Everyone duck!" Tony warned, then the claw fired up and he let it sail.

It propelled through the air fast as any rocket, and the others only just hit the ground in time for it to shoot above them and through the central programming system of the robot. The robot shuddered and keened, teetering a moment before keeling over entirely. As the robot stayed down and the battle proved itself over, civilians came out of their hiding. They were surrounded in a few seconds, and for a moment, Tony thought they'd be told to get lost all over again. Then, just like the old days, the crowd was cheering.

"Just like old times," Clint grinned at Tony, who landed between him and Steve with a grin of his own, though it was hidden by the faceplate.

"Just like old times." Tony clapped a metal hand to Clint's back, who flinched.

"Hah, yeah," Clint huffed a laugh, stretched his back, "Hurt back then, too."

* * *

"SHIELD's frozen all of Hammer's assets. He so much as sneezes, we'll be there with a hanky and handcuffs." Maria told them as they all squirmed in the debrief room.

It'd been a while, but the chairs were somehow just as uncomfortable as they'd been fifteen years ago. They'd been whisked straight there by SHIELD, children included, for a two hour long briefing. When Steve thought of the glory days, he'd sure done his best to forget this part.

"Does this mean we can come out of hiding?" Peter asked, bouncing a little in his seat, and Steve couldn't help the snort of laughter.

"Couple months and you're already itching to unmask." Steve chuckled. "You're worse than your father."

"Please, I was  _way_ better at the secret identity thing than you were—" Tony protested.

"Everyone and their mother thought you were Iron Man!" Steve laughed. "Do you even remember how many times I got asked about it by reporters?"

"The politicians can and will figure that one out," Maria intervened, "But SHIELD is willing to take care of everything else. Damage costs, cover stories, we're on it. The spin here is that you discovered Hammer's illicit activities  _before_  you stormed the island, and considering the killer robot you just took out, we think public goodwill will carry you through any immediate scrutiny. The point here is that—"

"Brothers, I have news," Thor announced, and was that his phone he was putting away?

"Were you just listening to your messages during a meeting?" Tony turned to Thor. "Last time we had a meeting like this, you thought a cell phone was a glowy projectile, now you're sneaking it like the rest of us. I don't think I've ever been so proud of you."

"What news, Thor?" Steve rolled his eyes at Tony.

"Darcy has located this fiend, Syndrome."

"Wait, what?" Maria started, but everyone began talking at once. She shut them down. "Quiet! Thor, talk."

"She says he came to the house claiming to be a babysitter, but she'd seen him on news, so she 'sicced Alexander on him'. I do not claim to know what that means, but I know that I do not like it." Thor stood. "I am returning home."

"Right behind you, buddy." Tony followed suit, Steve one step after him.

The others were quick to agree, and they all separated to head to Thor's. Steve and Tony headed for the nearest exit to open air, where they could take off with the suit, before realizing Peter was following them and, oh. Right. Steve almost laughed; it wasn't that he'd forgotten about his son, but…well. He'd always hitched a ride with the Iron Man suit as a means of getting home after debrief. It was just habit in this scenario, even after all these years. Tony seemed equally perplexed.

"I could carry you both, but…" He glanced at Steve, then Peter. "That might be a little much for a first time Iron Man passenger."

"You could  _carry_ me?" Peter said in awe, and it occurred to them both that Peter hadn't known where they were heading. He'd never even been on the Helicarrier before. They were both snapping so quickly back into old habits that they kept forgetting to factor Peter into them.

"It's a lot to handle." Tony shook his head. "We'll just go to the garage, take one of the cars—"

"No, come on!" Peter quickly moved in front of Tony, stopped him. "Dad, I swear, I can handle it, and it would be  _the_  coolest thing ever, please?"

Tony blinked a couple of times, looking stunned, and Steve couldn't blame him. Peter hadn't used the word "cool" in the same sentence as them in years, and he certainly didn't beg for things. He was too cool for please, these days.

"I—uh—" Tony glanced up at Steve, raised an eyebrow in question, asking for his opinion. Steve shrugged. "If you're sure. And you better not faint on me, either."

"You told him?" Peter demanded to Steve with a groan, "You don't always have to tell him  _everything,_ y'know. _"_

And _there_  was his son.

"It was cute." Steve just smiled, pressed a kiss to his hair. "Come on. You want to fly with Iron Man, or not?"

"Yeah." Peter's scowl dropped quickly, replaced again by an eager grin.

"Better enjoy it," Tony told Peter. He looped an arm around each of their waists as he stepped out onto the open air flight deck. "It's the last time you'll be seeing sunlight for a long,  _long_ time."

"Still grounded?" Peter winced.

"Until the end of time," Steve agreed, and with that, they took off.

Peter made a sound somewhere between a disbelieving laugh and a thrilled gasp, and Steve just smiled up at Tony fondly. He couldn't actually see Tony's expression through the faceplate, but he could envision it easily.

Tony had always had the harder time with Peter. They were so alike, Steve's boys, so tenacious, so outspoken, so brilliant. These similarities meant that when they were getting along they were thick as thieves, but when they weren't they had the ability to cut each other deep. Steve knew Peter had said some harsher things to the both of them lately, and the past day had been an incredible trial for them all; especially right now, Tony needed a little thing like this, seeing Peter whoop joyfully at flying through the air with his dads.

Tony could be so proof focused at times. It had driven Steve crazy, at first, the way Tony was always so sure Steve wasn't happy, or that he was getting ready to leave, simply because Steve had only said 'you too' that night instead of 'I love you', or because he'd forgotten a goodbye kiss in his rush out the door. Things Steve didn't even consider meant so much to Tony, and at first, Steve hadn't known what on earth Tony had been going on about.

He'd learned, over time. Tony needed affirmation, needed real, tangible things. He needed words and touches and displays of affection, things he could hold on to, could use to prove to himself that he was loved. Tony didn't need it from Steve as much anymore, not the way he used to; if Steve said 'you too' or missed a kiss here and there, Tony hardly noticed these days. He stole extra later, of course, though more because he liked Steve's kisses and less because he needed any sort of proof. Steve was grateful for that progress, had worked hard to earn that progress. The same couldn't quite be said of Peter.

Father-son relationships were harder. Peter didn't feel the same need to be affectionate; he was a teenager trying to strike out on his own, figure out who he was and where he stood in the world. While the goal of Steve's relationship with Tony was to coexist with him, to love him and support him and be his partner, Peter's was to distance himself, to figure out how to exist without him. It wasn't personal, it was just how life worked; Peter needed to grow up, extricate himself from his parents and figure out what kind of man he wanted to be. Steve knew Tony understood that, rationally, but Steve also knew that it didn't change Tony's base need to seek affirmation.

Which was how Steve knew that underneath the faceplate, Tony was smiling like a fool at Peter's appreciation for his suit. Steve leaned in, rested his head against Tony's shoulder as they flew.

When they landed, they were second on the scene; Thor had arrived first, and they could hear him shouting inside from the front yard.

"—not injured, or your fate would be far graver than your petty mind could dare to imagine! What a trifling, pathetic fool you are, to think you could lay hands on family of mine and breathe free air! I ought to turn your bones to mortar—!"

"That's enough." Steve held up a hand as he entered the house. Darcy sat on the kitchen counter looking quite proud of herself, Alexander in her lap. The baby was entirely unharmed, and watching his enraged father with bright, if puzzled, eyes. Syndrome was stripped to his boxers and tied up in the corner, his clothes—mostly weapons, like his rocket boots—piled on the kitchen table. He looked fried, and terrified out of his mind to have the god of thunder roaring in his face, unaware that Thor wasn't even a warm-up for what Steve was about to do to him. The man had tortured Steve's husband and son; he'd be  _dreaming_ for something as merciful as the god of thunder's wrath. Steve cracked his knuckles. "Tony, take Peter back outside. Thor, you can use his bones as mortar later. I promised him a few broken ones first."


	8. Chapter 8

Tony felt the air change when Steve entered his workshop. He still wasn't completely sure how he knew, but he no longer questioned it; he'd been able to tell when Steve came and went for years.

"Peter's asleep," Tony told him, turning back to his station briefly to set aside the soldering iron and remove his gloves, "Though that's hardly a surprise there, it's been a hell of a day for all of—"

He turned back, and Steve was already a breath away; that didn't surprise Tony anymore, Steve had always been a quiet mover, but the look on Steve's face caught his breath. Steve tugged the welding goggles off Tony's face, dropping them on the bench before running his hands through Tony's hair, smoothing it down, then clasping Tony by the back of the head and pulling him in for a lingering kiss. When Steve pulled away, it was only to rock forward, press their foreheads together as he curled both arms around Tony tightly.

"What did he do to you?" Steve murmured.

The question was soft, barely audible despite their proximity, and Steve's voice wavered ever so slightly on  _you._ Tony shushed him, pressed another kiss to his lips. He wasn't declining to talk—Tony had long lost hesitance for sharing his fears with his husband—only trying to soothe Steve before doing so. He knew Steve wasn't going to like the answer in the slightest. He was distracted for a moment by a glimpse of Steve's knuckles.

"Oh, baby." Tony took Steve's hand, pressed a kiss to the torn, bloody skin.

"It'll heal." Steve gave an apathetic shrug before tucking his chin down, pressing his face into Tony's shoulder. "Wish he wouldn't."

Tony embraced Steve again, clasping a hand to the back of Steve's neck and stroking the hair there the way he knew calmed Steve down. He didn't have to ask who 'he' was; Tony hadn't seen Steve since he'd taken Peter home from Thor's house. Peter, with his wide eyes and his  _oh god, Pops is really gonna_ hit  _him, huh?_. Tony had elaborated no more than  _Syndrome picked the wrong family_ , which was really all that needed to be said. The details of what Tony could be sure had occurred was no example either of them would want to set for Peter. He wasn't even sure if what Peter  _had_ seen was good impression, but he also knew full well there was no stopping Steve when he got like that. Best he could do was keep the details minimal.

For now, he simply held Steve close while the adrenaline burnt off. Steve was still tense, still angry, and Tony could feel it in the hard lines of his shoulders, the clench and release of his anxious hands against the back of Tony's shirt. Tony knew the precise moment it all wore off, when Steve melted into his arms with an exhausted, weary sigh Tony felt all the way in his bones.

"Sleep, darling." Tony pressed a kiss to his temple. "We can talk in the morning."

Steve shook his head, releasing his grip briefly. "I want to know, Tony. I won't be able sleep otherwise."

"Let's go to bed first, at least," Tony compromised, "You look like you're going to collapse."

"You should see the other guy," Steve told him with the barest hint of a smile, and there was the dark humor Tony'd always loved in him.

"I'll take your word for it." Tony smiled in return, leading Steve back upstairs.

Tony had barely sat on the bed a moment before Steve had an an arm around his waist. Tony managed—barely, no thanks to Captain Octopus—to get his shoes and jeans off, at which point Steve decided Tony was bed-ready enough and abused his superstrength to pull Tony in. He rolled onto his side, got comfortable huddled in Steve's arms; Steve was in a protective mood, Tony could tell, and Tony was more than happy to abide. He scooted down a bit, enough that Steve could curl around him more securely, press a kiss to his hair while Tony returned the favor to Steve's neck.

"Talk to me, sweetheart," Steve murmured. Tony let out a low, unhappy breath against Steve's neck. He traced patterns on Steve's back as he spoke, designs for the new Mark, maybe.

"They played your transmissions on speaker while I was strung up. I heard your voice, I knew the moment you—you knew. You were going down, and I could hear it all in your voice; there was no backup, there was no plan, and I…I need you, baby. I was worried for my family and I would be wrecked without them, but if he—if  _anyone_ took  _you_  from me—I don't know how to get back up without you anymore, I don't. God. Eighteen years, we've been married." Tony pulled away only enough to raise a hand, brush a thumb over Steve's cheek. "Eighteen years, and I'm supposed to imagine a life without you?"

Steve turned his head enough to press a kiss to Tony's thumb, then wrapped a hand around the back of Tony's head and tugged him into a soft kiss.

"Never," Steve murmured against his lips, "Not if I can help it."

Tony nestled closer, burying the words that scared him the most against Steve's skin. Steve would fight them for him. Tony knew, because they'd been doing it for each other since long before they were even wed.

"He said he was just granting my wish to work alone. If I'd paid him more attention when we'd met, if I'd just taken him on as, as Iron Boy, or whatever it was he wanted to be, I could've saved so many lives—"

"It wouldn't have changed anything—"

"It would have, we only had months left of being superheroes then, I could have brought him on when he was still just an idiot kid, kept him in line so he wouldn't have felt so vindictive—"

"He is an obsessive, insane psychopath." Steve clasped Tony's face in both hands, told him as firmly and fiercely as he could, "You were the excuse he chose, but crazy will always find an excuse to hurt people. This is  _not_ your fault."

Tony nodded silently. Steve pulled him back in again, wrapped Tony up in his arms as tightly as he dared.

"You try so hard, sweetheart." Steve pressed kisses to the skin he could reach, against Tony's cheek, his temple, his ear. "You were born with everything in your pocket, and even after Afghanistan, you could've sat back, could've let the world wash over you but you fought back, Tony, you  _always_  fight back. You turned yourself into a force of good all on your own, you saved yourself, and you have saved so many people since. Don't you ever forget that. Hell, Tony, you saved  _me_. I was seventy years out of my time, lost and alone and feeling like nothing more than a useless figurehead in a spangly costume, and you saw me for the man I am. You gave me my home, my friends, my family…you saved me. This is not your fault. You are good, you are loved, and you deserve everything you have fought for. This world,  _my_ world, wouldn't be the same without you."

Tony kissed the crook of Steve's neck with a whisper and a smile. "We saved each other, love."

* * *

"I think he fell out of a window." Steve met Maria's gaze steadily. "Or something."

"Seventeen broken bones." Maria deadpanned. "Four sprains, whiplash, and bruising—I feel I should quote the doctor on this—'Jesus, pretty much just everywhere'."

"I said or something." Steve shrugged indifferently.

"I don't know what you're complaining about, he'll heal." Tony agreed, lounging back in his chair.

"Better than he deserves," Steve grunted.

"You're not helping yourself." Maria narrowed her eyes.

"He's alive, isn't he?" Tony rolled his eyes.

"I made sure of that," Steve pointed out.

"When you saw him fall and very nobly saved him, of course," Tony added, patting Steve's hand.

"Of course." Steve nodded, taking Tony's hand in both of his and pulling it into his lap.

"I'm sure he considers Steve his hero," Maria said dryly, her pointed gaze darting between the two of them.

"He hasn't said anything to the contrary, has he?" Tony quirked an eyebrow, and only Steve could spot the smug smirk behind his perfect mask of polite, innocent interest.

"You know full well his jaw doesn't work." Maria glared at Tony shrewdly. "Just like you know full well that when we say the name  _Stark_ he clams right up. Funny, that."

"Guilty conscience." Steve glared right back. "Probably from torturing my husband and son."

"And you." Tony squeezed his hand. Steve rolled his eyes. Like anything worse could be done to him than seeing something done to Tony or Peter.

"And me," he acquiesced easily anyway, because he was in no mood to disagree with Tony over even the most trivial of things.

Hearing what Syndrome had tricked Tony into had made Steve want to storm the hospital and tear into the bastard all over again. Tony had believed Steve and a large portion of their family dead, their son missing and possibly captured; then, as if Tony's first instinct hadn't already been to blame himself, Syndrome had twisted the knife and told him so explicitly. Damn him.

_This is not your fault. You are good, you are loved, and you deserve everything you have fought for._

Steve ought to tattoo that to Tony's forehead.

"Well." Maria gathered the files she'd spread on the SHIELD debrief table. "I don't suppose I could have a minute alone with the Captain."

"No, I don't suppose you could." Tony smiled, but the edges were hard.

It was interesting, being back in SHIELD now. It wasn't that they were on opposites sides, exactly, but the last time he'd been here—aside from the Syndrome debrief—he had still been one of theirs. He'd been a Captain, and his skill set had certainly allowed him a fair amount of autonomy, but he'd still been employed by them. He'd worked for them when he'd been dating Tony, and for a short time after they were married, right up until they asked him to give up his marriage for the sake of appearances. He'd said no, and quit not long after, drawing the line firmly and permanently—his loyalties laid with Tony above all else.

Here they were again, fifteen years later.

"You want me to come back." Steve leaned forward, rested his forearms on the table. "You want us all to, in some 'official' capacity. Keep an eye on us, watch for strays, figure out where we stand so that when legislation turns in your favor, you can give your Avengers a second run. You want to talk to me first, offer me leadership in exchange for information, have me guide everyone into the right state of mind while keeping it all under wraps. Isn't that right? Well, you don't need to get me alone to ask. It's amusing that you think I wouldn't tell him every word you said, and it's even  _more_ amusing that you think he couldn't get the video feed from the room with the click of a button should he want to hear it himself. Regardless, I don't need to discuss this particular proposal with my husband because I know our answer and I know it now: no."

At Maria's faint, very controlled look of alarm, Tony laughed beside him.

"Fifteen years later, and you're still trying to make a spy out of a soldier."

"We're trying to stay prepared," was all Maria said, neither a confirmation nor a denial. Standard SHIELD evasion. Steve didn't miss it.

"Steve likes honor, loyalty, freedom—you're selling secrets, manipulation, and control." Tony stood, Steve joining him. "Call us when you're done trying to sell air to a fish, or when the world remembers we're actually kind of fucking awesome."

The moment they were out of the room, Steve slung an arm around Tony's waist, pulled him close and pressed a kiss to his temple. "Only kind of?"

"I was being kind, including the others," Tony teased, "You, my darling, are perfection."

"Sweet-talker."

"Always."

* * *

Peter's parents may have been superheroes, but they were still complete weirdos.

"That can't be  _actually_  comfortable." His parents didn't respond. "Seriously? Is it even possible to fall asleep like that?"

When his parents remained unconscious, he slammed the front door shut behind him for good measure. They both startled awake from their position on the couch, Dad half under Pops but with both legs hoisted up over one side of Pops' waist, Pops half on top of Dad with his face buried in Dad's shoulder, legs dangling off the couch, and both arms around and under Dad.

"I'm awake!" Dad pinwheeled, his arms spinning wildly as the slam of the door woke him. He was about to fall off the couch, but Pops yanked him back.

"Whazzit?" Pops glanced up, blearily in spite of his immediate reflex to haul Dad back onto the couch. "Oh. Hey, Pete. School out early?"

"It's four in the afternoon. And those are some real ninja reflexes you guys got going on there." Peter rolled his eyes. "Total mystery how I never guessed your secret identities."

"To be fair." Dad raised a finger. "I'm pushing forty—"

"By which you mean fifty," Peter corrected.

"Though you only look thirty." Pops kissed Dad's cheek.

"Great, Captain America's a liar, another thing to add to my scrapbook." Peter snorted.

"That wasn't a lie, you sassmonster, I am stunning." Dad scowled at him. "The  _point_ is that I am pushing an age we can all agree I do not look, and I fought a supervillain a week ago. I'm allowed to be tired."

"It's four in the afternoon. You're  _napping."_ Peter made a face. "Couldn't you at least have used your own bed?"

"We were watching a movie," Dad defended, "And I was kidnapped twice last week, there are extenuating circumstances."

Pops tightened the arm he had around Dad's waist, but Peter only rolled his eyes.

"Kinda sounds like your own fault." Peter hummed. "I only got kidnapped once."

"Are we sure he's not related to you somehow?" Dad demanded of Pops, "Because that sounds  _exactly_ like your sass."

"Funny. He sounds like you, to me." Pops leaned in, and Peter made a face that did absolutely nothing to stop his eternally-honeymooning parents from kissing in the living room.

"I'm going to the kitchen." Peter declared. Still kissing. Great. "Not that you care. I'm also dropping out of school to fight evil, by the way, say nothing if you're okay with it."

"Even Spider-boys need their education," Pops just called after him.

"Spider- _Man_ ," Peter complained, "Come on."

"Whatever you say, webhead." Dad chuckled.

"Congratulations." Peter emerged from the kitchen with a banana, to find them no farther apart than when he'd walked in. Jesus. Why couldn't he have normal parents, or at least parents who didn't mind giving each other an inch of space every once in a while? "You've managed to make having superhero parents as completely boring and totally mortifying as having normal ones. I'm going to my room."

"You can call us superparents if it makes you feel better," Dad teased, striking a dramatic pose with one fist the air and the other planted on his hip. Peter groaned.

How was  _this_ the guy from the comic books? Iron Man was supposed to be a tortured soul, an antihero with a guilt complex and a drinking problem. Dad was a fast-talking, carefree goofball, and Peter wasn't sure he'd ever seen him drink in his entire life. Not to mention, the last thing Dad had was any kind of guilt complex. Dad never cared what anyone thought; not when it came to how he appeared to the public, not when it came to acting like a honeymooner all the damn time, not when it came to embarrassing the crap out of Peter at every given opportunity. He did what he wanted, he always had.

Peter just couldn't see it. He gave a sigh at his parents general…ness, and headed to his room. Pops gave him a strangely contemplative sort of look as he left, but Peter ignored it and went off to finish the layout for the yearbook pages he was supposed to turn in by Friday.

When he came back later to use the TV and saw Pops already using it, he figured he'd just go back to his room and play some videogames. Instead, without turning around, Pops clicked the TV off and waved the remote in a  _come here_ gesture. Peter blinked in surprise, and Pops chuckled.

"Superhearing. How do you think we always caught you sneaking out?"

"Guess you're not gonna have to hide that sort of stuff anymore, huh?" Peter mused.

"No." Pops smiled, but it faded quickly. "Take a seat for a moment, Peter."

"Okay." Peter did, but he heard something strange in Pops' voice. "Why? Am in trouble? Uh, more trouble?"

"No." Pops shook his head. "I want you to think about this, Peter: if Emma had died, how would you feel?"

"I—" Peter swallowed hard, the thought of it strange and uncomfortable to even consider. "Uh, I—I don't know."

"Even if you could have done nothing, you would feel incredibly guilty. You would replay everything you could've done over in your head, come up with hundreds of ways it all could've gone differently. You would tell yourself it wasn't your fault, and you would take out all the rage building inside you on whoever had killed her, or the next best victim, but you would still feel that the blame fell solely on you, because there had to have been a way to protect her, and you didn't find it."

The words rolled off Pops' tongue easily, and it startled Peter how morbid he was being until it dawned on him how very many people Captain America must have lost. In the war, by coming to the future, on Avengers missions…Peter swallowed, hard.

"I'm sorry, Papa."

"You haven't called me that in a very long time." Pops smiled at him softly, then leaned forward enough to pat Peter's knee. "I don't mean to scare you, or make you feel guiltier than you do. I'm telling you this because I see the disdainful looks you give me and your father."

"They're not disdainful," Peter denied with a wince, but when he looked up Pops didn't seem angry, exactly. Mostly commanding. Kind of like seeing him in the suit, just a little. "Okay, sometimes. You're just…it's  _weird,_ I mean, you're my _parents_."

"We are. But we're people, too." Pops gave a small chuckle. "I understand we're not like your friend's parents, but you need to understand that we're  _not_ your friend's parents. I never said anything before because as long as you didn't know who we were, there wasn't anything to say. But you know who we are now, Peter. The things we've done? I've lost track of how many times I've almost lost your father, and that  _terrifies_ me. That terrifies me more than anything in this world. It's a fear I'll never forget, and it makes me deeply appreciative of what I have."

Peter thought about that, for a moment. Emma was his sister so it wasn't like he was going to go around kissingher or anything like Dad and Pops, but…he'd hugged her a lot more since it all, and their talking-to-fighting ratio had definitely shifted. It was the same with Rowan, too, and even the adults. He could sort of understand what Pops meant about appreciation; it was like that saying, about not knowing what you have until it's gone. Or, he supposed the superhero version would be more along the lines of 'you don't know what you have until they almost die like four times in an hour'.

"I could've lost your father just a few days ago." Pops shook his head as if he hated the very thought. "I could lose him tomorrow, should another villain from our past decide it's time for Act II. You'll forgive my embarrassing you if I give him a proper kiss when he comes home instead of a disinterested hello from across the house. It took an experimental drug, a crashed plane, seventy years in the Arctic Circle, a well-timed expedition, and the world's first alien invasion just for me to meet him; I learned and I learned real quick that if you love someone and you have the luxury of holding them in your arms, you damn well do so every chance you get."

"I think I get it. I mean, it's still weird to see," Peter admitted, "But I get it. More, anyway."

"I don't know what's so weird about it." Pops gave a huff, though he seemed more chagrinned than stern now. "You have parents who love each other, that's hardly a bad thing. Even when you were younger and didn't understand the concept of knocking, it's not as if you've ever run into us indisposed, or even with wandering hands—"

"Ew, god, this is worse, stop talking—"

"I'm only saying you're surprisingly prudish for a Stark," Pops teased him.

"Weren't you born in the forties?" Peter shot him a baffled look. "What're you calling  _me_ prudish for?"

"I couldn't have held your father's hand in the forties, much less anything else." Pops gave a rueful sort of sigh. "I don't miss the forties. I miss the people I lost, but I gained a lot of people, too. You know, I've been in this time longer than I was in that one. Still get called the man out of time, but this time has been my home for a while now."

"This is the weirdest conversation I think I've ever had."

"If you're serious about being a superhero, you'll learn soon enough there's no such thing as 'weirdest'." Pops only chuckled. "Something stranger will always come along."

"Wait. If I'm serious? You mean, I could be a…?" Peter's eyes went wide.

"Not until you're at least twenty-one," Dad said from across the room. Peter turned to see him coming in from the hallway. "And not without  _extensive_ training. Also, I want a look at those web-shooters of yours, I saw them jam a few times and if you're going out on the streets with those things you're not falling to your death doing it."

" _Yes!"_ Peter leapt up over the back of the couch, charging up to hug his dad as tightly as he could. "Thank you thank you  _thank you_ , I promise I'll—"

"I don't know what you're so excited about, you're not swinging anywhere for at least another four years." Dad just snorted. "And in the meantime, Clint fights dirty, your Pops is surprisingly vicious, and Natasha  _will_ go for the family jewels if you don't take her seriously. Training isn't half as fun as it sounds."

"It's starting to occur to me that everyone in this family could totally kill me."

"Pretty much." Dad shrugged.

"Tony." Pops shot him a look.

"Hey, don't look at me." Dad put his hands in the air innocently. "I'd disagree, but Alexander  _fried_ Hammer. I hear he lost brain cells."

"I wasn't aware he had them," Pops grunted.

"Cute." Dad leaned over the back of the couch, tugged Pops into a brief kiss.

"Welp, I'm going to study now…" Peter started backing out of the room. "See you."

"Okay?" Dad seemed confused by his hasty retreat, but Pops just gave him a smile, knowing full well Peter was just giving them space to enjoy their boring, cuddly parent shtick on their own.

"Dinner's at seven."

"You got it." Peter turned, shot him a salute and a grin. "Cap."


End file.
